Chapter 3: The Rewind of Reality
The heavy oak door swung open, pushed by a man in a sharp, slate-gray suit carrying a heavy leather briefcase. It was Marcus, the senior director of the estate's private security and automation network, flanked by two local police officers.
Clara took a step back, her back hitting the foyer table. "Marcus? What is the meaning of this? Get these men out of my house!"
Marcus didn't look at Clara with the submissive respect he usually reserved for the lady of the house. Instead, he pulled a small, ruggedized tablet from his briefcase and tapped the screen twice.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Sterling, but we can't do that," Marcus said evenly. "Mr. Sterling called my emergency line ten minutes before he arrived home, requesting a remote sync of the foyer’s multi-angle optical sensors because he noticed a spike in household power usage from his phone app."
Ethan turned back to his wife, his gaze unblinking. "When I left for the market this morning, Mom was resting in the solarium. You were supposed to be at your charity luncheon. But the system logs show you never left the property. In fact, they show something much more interesting."
Marcus pressed play on the tablet.
The screen came to life, casting a bright, cold blue light over the shattered eggs and spilled milk on the marble. The audio and video began to play in crystal-clear high definition, capturing every single second of what had happened twenty minutes prior.
On the screen, Victoria was walking slowly with her walker toward the kitchen. Clara walked up behind her, not offering help, but deliberately kicking the edge of the walker’s front wheel. The older woman lost her balance instantly, crashing hard onto the marble floor.
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As Victoria cried out in pain, the audio caught Clara’s exact words, spoken with a cruel, venomous smile: "Stop screaming, old woman. The faster you break your hip, the faster Ethan realizes you belong in a nursing home, and the cleaner our division of assets becomes."
Then, the video showed Clara calmly stepping over Victoria’s thrashing body, walking to the table, and pouring a fresh teacup while waiting for Ethan’s car to pull into the driveway.
