Adrian returned to the mansion just after eight.
The party was gone.
The terrace had been cleaned.
Someone had even dried the stone around the pool.
It looked as though nothing had happened.
That disturbed him more than the mess would have.
The security manager was waiting in the monitoring room.
“I pulled everything from last night.”
“Show me.”
Multiple camera feeds appeared across the wall.
Driveway.
Front entrance.
Kitchen corridor.
Terrace.
Pool.
Adrian leaned closer.
7:39 PM.
Lily entered the frame.
7:40.
Vivian followed.
7:41.
Guests crossed between the cameras.
Then—
the image jumped.
7:47 PM.
The pool was full of people.
Adrian was already in the water.
“Go back.”
The manager did.
Same result.
7:41:58.
Then 7:47:03.
Adrian stared at the screen.
“Camera failure?”
“No.”
“Network outage?”
“No.”
“Then where are the five minutes?”
The man hesitated.
“They were deleted.”
Adrian slowly turned.
“Deleted?”
“Manually.”
“Can you recover them?”
“I’m trying.”
“Who did it?”
“I can’t tell you that yet.”
“Why not?”
“The deletion was made through a household administrator account. The system records the credential, not necessarily the person physically using it.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Who has that credential?”
The manager looked uncomfortable.
“You do.”
“Who else?”
Silence.
“Tell me.”
“Mrs. Cole.”
Adrian looked back at the missing space on the timeline.
Five minutes.
Exactly the five minutes that mattered.
He went upstairs.
Vivian was sitting at her dressing table.
“You’re back.”
Adrian stayed by the doorway.
“Did you delete security footage?”
Vivian blinked.
“Excuse me?”
“Five minutes are missing from the pool camera.”
She turned fully toward him.
“And you think I did that?”
“I asked a question.”
“No.”
Too quick.
Adrian noticed.
Vivian stood.
“You came home from the hospital and your first instinct is to interrogate me?”
“My daughter says you pushed her into a pool.”
“Your daughter has hated me since the day we married.”
“She has an injury on her hand.”
“She fell.”
“From what?”
“Stone. Pool coping. Anything.”
Adrian watched her.
Vivian walked past him.
“You know how Lily gets.”
He didn’t answer.
“She becomes emotional. She exaggerates. She fixates.”
Still nothing.
Vivian finally looked back.
“Adrian?”
Those words had worked on him before.
You know how Lily gets.
He had heard variations of them for months.
Lily is sensitive.
Lily is jealous.
Lily is still obsessed with her mother.
Lily doesn’t want you to be happy.
For the first time, Adrian heard what those sentences actually did.
They made every accusation Lily might ever make easier to dismiss.
He took out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Changing the security credentials.”
Vivian’s expression hardened.
Only for a second.
But he saw it.
That evening, Adrian returned to Lily’s hospital room.
She was awake.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you find the video?”
He sat down.
“There are five minutes missing.”
Lily stared at him.
“Which five?”
“You already know.”
Her face went pale.
Adrian reached for her hand.
“Lily.”
She pulled it away.
Not angrily.
Automatically.
That hurt worse.
“Who could delete it?”
Adrian waited too long.
Lily understood.
“Oh.”
He watched her turn toward the window.
“Vivian?”
“We don’t know that.”
“She did it.”
“I said we don’t know yet.”
Lily laughed once.
Quietly.
“You still need more.”
Adrian looked at her.
“More what?”
“More proof.”
She finally turned back.
“How much proof does someone need before you believe their daughter?”
He had no answer.
