Chapter 6 - What the Camera Kept
By evening, the internet had decided Jada was a monster. The thirty-second clip showed her pressing cake into Claire's face and nothing before it.
Jada sat on the floor of her apartment, reading comments until she felt sick. Her little brother Malik called from Albany.
"I know you," he said. "You lose your temper when someone cheats at board games. But you don't just attack strangers."
"I did hurt her," Jada answered. "That's what makes this hard."
"Then own that. But don't let them own the whole truth."
Armand invited her and Priya to review the preserved security recordings, not to take copies. Every camera file carried timestamps and an access history. The cake footage had been exported twice: once by Armand, once by C.R. Events.
"Claire had an access account for promotional footage," Armand said. "It should never have let her trim evidence from an incident."
The timestamp on the shortened clip matched the file first posted online.
"That suggests a source," Priya said. "It isn't proof of who clicked upload. We'll request the account logs."
Then Armand opened the hallway feed. Before the event, Claire stood beside a catering cart speaking to Martin. No audio, just movement. At one point Martin handed her a folded document and pointed toward the studio barns.
"Can you zoom?" Jada asked.
"Not without losing detail," Armand replied. "The honest answer is we can't read it."
Min came into the office to sign her loss statement. She noticed the timestamp on the still image.
"I remember that cart," she said. "Claire asked us to move the cake thirty minutes before the guests arrived. She wanted the dessert table in front of the camera."
Jada looked at the frozen frame. Claire had chosen exactly where the confrontation would be filmed.
Armand's work phone rang. He listened, then looked up.
May you like
"The person who ordered the barn cameras shut off just tried to sign into our system again," he said. "From inside the manor."
