He had found me kneeling half-conscious in the snow with Lily inside my sweater.
He walked into the aisle.
“I found them approximately eleven minutes after your vehicle left that section of road.”
Victor’s face tightened.
Daniel continued calmly.
“The infant was protected against her mother’s body.
Claire was severely hypothermic and barely responsive.”
Victor looked toward the agents.
“You cannot prove I left them.”
That was when the second piece of evidence appeared.
An agent near the audiovisual station touched a control.
The chapel screen came on.
No title appeared.
No explanation was needed.
The image showed the interior of Victor’s SUV.
His own security system had recorded portions of the drive.
Victor had ordered the vehicle wiped after returning home.
But the system automatically mirrored diagnostic and security data to a corporate server used by his fleet.
He had forgotten that.
The recording had no dramatic angle and no perfect lighting.
That made it worse.
It was ordinary.
Cold.
Real.
Victor appeared behind the wheel.
My exhausted voice asked where we were going.
Then came his answer.
“We need quiet family time.”
The footage jumped forward.
Snow filled the windows.
The SUV stopped.
Victor’s voice said, “Get out.”
A woman in the third row covered her mouth.
Vanessa stopped breathing visibly.
The recording continued.
My protest.
Lily’s cry.
The open door.
Victor’s final sentence before driving away.
“Nature is cruel, Claire.
How tragic that my wife wandered into a storm during a postpartum breakdown.”
When the screen went dark, no one in the chapel looked at Victor the same way.
His father lowered his head.
His business partner stepped backward.
Vanessa slowly removed her hand from Victor’s arm.
Victor looked at her.
“You knew she found the files,” I said.
Vanessa snapped her head toward me.
“I didn’t know he would do that.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
“Vanessa.”
She began shaking.
“I told you to stop the transfer.
I told you Claire had seen too much, but I never told you to hurt her.”
The sentence landed harder than anything I could have accused them of.
Victor stared at her in disbelief.
