Chapter 17 - THE LAST VIDEO
Lily described a black device no larger than a deck of cards.
"Vanessa said it was yours. I knocked it off when I was looking for tape. She got really mad."
I searched my office.
Behind the bookshelf was a tiny adhesive mount.
A hidden camera.
Digital forensics found its companion app on Vanessa's old tablet.
The cloud account had not been deleted.
There were hundreds of clips.
Most showed my empty office.
Some showed me entering passwords, opening trust statements, scanning signatures.
Vanessa had been collecting access for nearly a year.
Then we found the clip from the night Lily broke the camera.
She entered the office carrying a handmade Father's Day card.
She climbed onto my chair to place it beside my computer.
Her elbow hit the hidden camera.
It fell.
Vanessa rushed in seconds later.
"What did you touch?"
"I'm sorry."
Vanessa grabbed the card from the desk.
"You are always where you don't belong."
Lily started crying.
Then Vanessa looked directly into the fallen camera.
"If Daniel asks, you were snooping. Understand?"
The clip continued after Lily left.
Graham Pike entered my office through the hallway.
My blood turned cold.
He and Vanessa discussed the trust review, my signature image, and the plan to build a record showing Lily needed residential placement.
Then Graham asked, "And if Daniel refuses to remove himself as trustee?"
Vanessa smiled.
"Then we make him look negligent too."
The video gave investigators what they needed to connect the forged documents to both of them.
But for me, the most important part was the first thirty seconds.
Lily had not been snooping.
She had been bringing me a card.
I found it later behind the filing cabinet, bent and dusty.
On the front she had written:
FOR DAD - PLEASE COME HOME EARLY SOMETIME.
May you like
I sat on the floor and cried.
Because she had been asking long before I finally listened.
