Chapter 3 - The Hidden Footage
I spent two hours nursing my mother. I made her warm tea, helped her change into dry clothes, and sat beside her until her breathing slowed and she finally fell into an exhausted sleep.
When I stepped back down into the living room, the puddle had been wiped away, but the scent of betrayal lingered heavily in the air. Vanessa was sitting on the leather sofa, scrolling through her phone with a tense expression.
"Marcus, we need to talk," she began, standing up as soon as I entered. "You completely misjudged what you saw today. I’ve been under so much stress taking care of your mother! Her dementia has progressed so fast while you were away. She forgets where she is, she gets aggressive—"
"My mother doesn't have dementia, Vanessa," I said softly, sitting across from her.
"She does!" Vanessa insisted, her voice rising in pitch. "The doctor gave her new medication two months ago. She’s been deteriorating! Ask anyone! I’ve been sacrificing my entire life taking care of her while you were busy making deals in America!"
I looked at my wife—the woman I had married four years ago, believing she was kind, elegant, and devoted. Now, looking into her eyes, I saw only a stranger wearing a mask.
"I see," I said slowly, forcing my expression to soften into one of weary exhaustion. "I'm sorry, Vanessa. I was jet-lagged and overwhelmed. It was just a shock seeing her on the floor like that."
Vanessa let out a long breath, her shoulders relaxing as a triumphant smile threatened to touch the corners of her lips. "I forgive you, darling. You were just tired. Why don't you go take a warm bath? I’ll make us some dinner."
"That sounds nice," I murmured.
I went up to my home office on the third floor and locked the door behind me. My heart was pounding like a sledgehammer against my ribs.
I sat down at my desk and pulled out a sleek silver laptop from my briefcase—not my personal computer, but my secure corporate laptop. When I upgraded the house security six months ago, I had installed three hidden micro-cameras powered by independent batteries and linked directly to an encrypted cloud server that Vanessa knew nothing about. One was hidden inside the smoke detector in the living room, another in the kitchen ceiling, and a third in the second-floor hallway outside my mother's bedroom.
My fingers trembled as I logged into the server and opened the archive logs for the past ninety days.
What appeared on the screen made me nauseous.
Day after day, footage played of Vanessa tormenting my mother. She would lock Evelyn in her bedroom for twelve hours at a time. She would withhold her meals until my mother wept from hunger. On three separate occasions, I watched in utter horror as Vanessa slapped my mother across the face when Evelyn tried to use the house telephone.
And then, I found the clip from two weeks ago.
Vanessa was standing in the kitchen with a man I hadn't seen in years—Julian Vance, her former fiancé and a disgraced real estate attorney.
Vanessa was holding a legal document in her hands while Julian handed her a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid.
"Just two drops in her morning tea every day," Julian’s voice echoed clearly through my headphones. "It will cause confusion, slurred speech, and severe muscle weakness. Within a month, the doctors will certify her as mentally incompetent. Once she's declared unfit, you can sign the land transfer forms as her primary caregiver."
May you like
"And Marcus?" Vanessa asked on the recording, a chilling smile on her face. "What if he comes back early?"
"Marcus is clueless," Julian chuckled sinisterly. "He trusts you completely. By the time he realizes what's happening, the ancestral estate will already be sold to the development group, and the eight million dollars will be locked in our Panama account."
