Chapter 4 - Vanessa Says Emma Planted The Evidence
Vanessa changed her story the next morning.
Through her attorney, she claimed Emma had planted the leaves in the
silver box.
She said Emma was obsessed with Luca.
She produced text messages.
Messages supposedly sent from Emma to another maid.
HE NOTICED ME TONIGHT.
SHE DOESN’T DESERVE HIM.
SOON SHE’LL BE GONE.
Emma stared at the screenshots.
“I never wrote those.”
The other maid, Rosa Martinez, was questioned.
She confirmed receiving messages from a number saved as Emma.
But Emma’s phone records showed they did not originate from her number.
The sender had used a messaging app account with Emma’s photograph.
Someone had impersonated her.
That did not prove Vanessa did it.
Then detectives examined the account registration.
It had been created using an email address tied to a prepaid device.
Security footage from a pharmacy showed Vanessa’s driver purchasing that
device.
The driver said Vanessa asked him to buy it.
Vanessa claimed it was for event planning.
Again, each fact had an innocent explanation in isolation.
Together, they formed a troubling pattern.
Luca called Emma into his study with Dominic present.
“I owe you an apology.”
Emma stiffened.
“For what?”
“For allowing someone in my house to build a story around you.”
Emma shook her head.
“You didn’t know.”
“I should know what happens under my roof.”
That sounded like Luca Moretti.
Responsibility as authority.
Then he asked why Emma had truly taken the plate.
She told him about her father.
Years repairing elevators.
Years teaching her to notice when a machine sounded different.
“He always said small changes happen before big failures.”
Luca looked at the untouched silver box in an evidence photograph.
“A different smell.”
May you like
“Yes.”
That tiny detail may have interrupted something much larger.
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