Chapter 2 - THE CAMERA MARGARET FORGOT WAS RECORDING.
Daniel pulled the smart-home footage onto the dining-room screen.
Margaret immediately ordered him to stop.
“This is a family dinner, not a courtroom.”
Emily stood beside the untouched bowls.
“You turned it into a trial the second you blamed me.”
The video showed Emily stirring the soup, turning toward the sink, and chopping herbs.
Then Margaret appeared behind the pantry door.
She removed the filter clip, loosened the range-hood grille, and waited.
The small mouse fell only after Emily’s back was turned.
No one at the table spoke.
Margaret recovered with terrifying speed.
“I was checking the vent. I had no idea anything was trapped inside.”
Emily looked at the clip still pressed into her palm.
“You smiled before it fell.”
Vanessa accused Emily of humiliating an elderly woman over an accident.
“That is what people like you do,” she said. “You marry into money, then manufacture cruelty so everyone feels sorry for you.”
Emily’s face burned.
“People like me? You mean women whose parents worked instead of inherited?”
Richard ordered the pot sealed and the footage preserved.
Then Daniel found an audio setting attached to the camera.
Margaret’s whisper played through the speakers:
“Tonight, they’ll finally see what kind of wife you are.”
Daniel turned toward his mother.
May you like
Margaret did not deny the words.
She only said, “You still don’t know why I needed her gone.”
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