Chapter 20 - Anna’s Final Evidence
The last piece of evidence came from the miniature camera.
Technicians recovered deleted files stored in its internal memory.
Dererick had used the device before.
One recording showed Evelyn seated in her bedroom.
Dererick placed a mug beside her.
She asked why the camera was there.
He answered:
“For the insurance inventory.”
After she became drowsy, he positioned estate documents on her lap.
He tried to guide her hand toward a signature line.
Evelyn woke enough to push him away.
“You are not my son,” she said.
Dererick smiled.
“No. I’m the one keeping your daughters from destroying each other.”
The video continued after he thought he had turned the camera off.
Vale entered.
Dererick complained that Evelyn refused to sign.
Vale said:
“Then the daughters inherit and you control the weaker one.”
“Melissa?”
“No. Anna. She trusts you.”
The plan had always targeted Anna.
Evelyn died because she resisted.
Melissa was recruited because she wanted money and feared losing her inheritance.
Anna was selected because she loved Dererick.
Trust made her useful.
The prosecutor played the recording in full.
Anna watched Dererick’s face.
For the first time, he looked ashamed.
Not of what he had done.
Of being seen clearly.
The prosecutor’s closing argument was simple.
“They manufactured confusion, then called resistance insanity. They created danger, then called their victims unstable. They used medicine, marriage, and family loyalty as tools of theft.”
The defense argued there was no direct proof Dererick intended Evelyn to die.
The prosecutor answered:
“When a man drugs a woman, prevents emergency help, stages the room, steals her estate, and repeats the same method on her daughter, intention is not hidden. It is a pattern.”
The jury began deliberating.
Anna waited with Rebecca.
Melissa waited in custody elsewhere.
For the first time in almost a year, there was nothing Anna could do.
May you like
The truth had been presented.
Now twelve strangers would decide whether it mattered.
