Chapter 3: The Evidence Victoria Forgot
The emergency department had grown quiet.
Outside Lily's room, nurses moved through the brightly lit hallway in practiced silence. Somewhere down the corridor, a heart monitor beeped steadily.
I hadn't left my daughter's bedside once.
She was asleep now, sedated after the doctors cleaned the puncture wounds in her knees and stitched several deep cuts across her back.
Her fingers still clung to the sleeve of my jacket.
Even in her sleep...
She was afraid I would leave again.
I gently brushed a strand of hair away from her forehead.
"I'm here," I whispered.
"I'm not going anywhere."
A knock interrupted the silence.
Three people entered the room.
The first wore a dark navy police uniform.
The second carried a leather briefcase marked Child Protection Unit.
The third was Commissioner Daniel Lim himself.
He walked directly toward me.
His expression changed the moment he saw Lily.
For several seconds...
He couldn't speak.
Finally he exhaled.
"My God..."
He had known Lily since she was nine.
She used to call him Uncle Daniel.
He looked at the bruises covering her arms.
Then at the fresh bandages around her knees.
His jaw tightened.
"Who did this?"
I answered quietly.
"My wife."
Daniel closed his eyes.
When he opened them again...
There was no trace of friendship.
Only the cold professionalism of Singapore's highest-ranking police commissioner.
"We're treating this as an attempted grievous hurt investigation."
The Child Protection officer nodded.
"And possible prolonged abuse."
The emergency physician handed Daniel a thick medical file.
"Initial examination completed."
"Twenty-three separate external injuries."
"Several are at least six to eight weeks old."
Daniel slowly turned the pages.
Every photograph seemed worse than the last.
Long bruises.
Healing cuts.
Old scars.
Fresh bleeding.
He stopped on one image.
"What caused these?"
The doctor answered immediately.
"Belt strikes."
"There are repeated parallel markings."
"Consistent with leather."
The room became completely silent.
Daniel closed the folder.
"Photograph everything."
"We'll need certified medical evidence."
Meanwhile...
Across the city...
Victoria stood alone inside the penthouse.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
She stared at the leather belt lying on the living room floor.
Blood still stained the carpet.
The durian shells remained scattered everywhere.
For nearly a minute...
She simply stood there.
Then survival instinct took over.
"No..."
She whispered.
"I can fix this."
She grabbed a trash bag.
The broken durian shells disappeared first.
Then the torn school uniform.
The blood-soaked towels.
The leather belt.
She scrubbed furiously at the carpet.
The expensive cleaning solution only spread the blood into a larger pink stain.
"Panic won't help."
She forced herself to breathe.
She pulled out her phone.
One call.
Then another.
Neither answered.
Finally...
Her lawyer picked up.
"David."
"I need you."
His voice remained calm.
"What happened?"
She hesitated.
Then lied.
"My stepdaughter had an accident."
There was silence.
"What kind of accident?"
"She..."
"She fell."
Before she could continue...
The apartment doorbell rang.
Victoria frowned.
She wasn't expecting anyone.
She walked toward the entrance.
Looked through the digital peephole.
Her face drained of color.
Six police officers.
The lead detective spoke clearly through the intercom.
"Mrs. Victoria Tan."
"We have a warrant to enter the premises."
Victoria's heart stopped.
Already?
How?
She had barely left the hospital.
No.
Adrian had.
She realized the truth immediately.
He hadn't come home to argue.
He had gone straight to the police.
Inside the hospital...
Commissioner Lim looked at me.
"Adrian."
"I need to ask you something."
I nodded.
"Does your home have security cameras?"
For a second...
I simply stared at him.
Then memory struck.
The renovation.
Two years earlier.
After a series of burglaries in the neighborhood.
I had installed an advanced security system.
Every hallway.
Every entrance.
Every common room.
Motion-activated.
Cloud storage.
Automatically backed up.
I closed my eyes.
Victoria had forgotten.
Or maybe...
She had never known.
I looked at Daniel.
"Everything is recorded."
He smiled for the first time that night.
"Excellent."
Less than twenty minutes later...
The police cybercrime unit accessed the cloud server.
Thousands of hours of footage appeared.
The detective searched one date.
Nothing unusual.
Another.
Nothing.
Then...
Three months earlier.
A Tuesday afternoon.
Lily entered the apartment wearing her school uniform.
Victoria was waiting.
The detective pressed Play.
No one in the room spoke.
Victoria smiled warmly.
Until the apartment door closed.
Then...
Her expression changed instantly.
She slapped Lily across the face.
Hard.
The sound echoed through the speakers.
Lily stumbled backward.
No words.
No argument.
No warning.
Just violence.
Commissioner Lim slowly removed his glasses.
"How many videos are there?"
The technician checked.
He looked up slowly.
"Eighty-seven."
The room froze.
"Eighty-seven separate recordings."
Covering nearly...
Three months.
Another clip began.
Victoria grabbed Lily's homework.
Ripped it apart.
Another.
She threw Lily's dinner into the trash.
Another.
She forced Lily to scrub the marble floor on her hands and knees.
Another.
She locked Lily out on the balcony during heavy rain.
Hour after hour.
Video after video.
Pattern after pattern.
Cruelty.
Humiliation.
Fear.
Always when Adrian was away.
Always before he came home.
And every single time...
Victoria smiled the moment she heard the elevator doors open.
Transforming instantly into the loving wife.
The perfect stepmother.
The perfect actress.
Commissioner Lim finally paused the footage.
His voice became almost whisper-soft.
"This wasn't loss of control."
"No."
"This was systematic."
He turned toward the detective.
"I want every recording preserved."
"No editing."
"No compression."
"Every second."
The detective nodded.
"Already copying."
Then the technician suddenly frowned.
"Sir..."
"What is it?"
"I found another camera."
Commissioner Lim looked confused.
"There shouldn't be another one."
The technician enlarged the building layout.
Hidden inside the study...
A private office camera.
Rarely used.
Motion activated.
He clicked it open.
A recording from two weeks earlier appeared.
Victoria sat alone at Adrian's desk.
She wasn't abusing Lily.
She was opening Adrian's safe.
The technician exchanged a puzzled glance with Daniel.
Then Victoria pulled out...
A thick envelope.
Life insurance documents.
She smiled.
And quietly began taking photographs of every page.
The room went silent.
Commissioner Lim leaned closer to the screen.
"What exactly..."
May you like
"...was she planning?"
To Be Continued...
