“You have no idea what happened in that house.
Brooke becomes hysterical.
She fell.
She twists things.”
I watched him carefully.
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
That answer unsettled him more than shouting would have.
“What did she tell you?”
I said nothing.
For the first time since I had known Trevor, uncertainty reached his face.
He stepped closer to the glass.
“Elena.
What did Brooke tell you?”
Two officers appeared behind him.
Trevor turned.
The lawyer began speaking immediately.
One officer informed Trevor that investigators needed him to accompany them for further questioning.
Victoria was being interviewed separately.
Trevor looked back at me.
His confidence was still there, but thinner now.
“This family has resources you don’t understand,” he said.
“I understand them perfectly.”
Then the officers took him away.
Brooke remained in intensive care for days.
Her recovery did not happen like it does in movies.
There was no miraculous morning when she sat upright and became herself again.
She slept for long stretches.
Sometimes she knew where she was; sometimes she didn’t.
Light hurt her eyes.
Words occasionally disappeared halfway through a sentence.
When she finally understood completely that the pregnancy was gone, she turned her face toward the wall and refused to speak for almost an entire day.
I sat beside her anyway.
There was nothing powerful I could say.
Nothing could make that loss fair.
Meanwhile, the case against Trevor and Victoria grew.
The most damaging evidence came from their own home.
The Vances had security cameras covering much of the estate.
They insisted the indoor system had malfunctioned that night.
Investigators discovered that portions had been deleted after Brooke was taken from the property.
But a synchronized backup had preserved fragments.
No image showed the entire assault clearly, but it showed enough.
Brooke entering the corridor upright.
Victoria following her.
Trevor appearing later with the golf club in his hand.
And, much later, Trevor and Victoria moving Brooke toward the rear exit while she was unable to walk on her own.
Their lawyers attacked every piece individually.
The timestamps were unreliable.
The images lacked context.
The medical injuries could have another explanation.
Brooke’s memory was impaired by trauma.
But explanations began colliding with one another.
If Brooke had simply fallen, why delete recordings?
If she had left voluntarily, why was blood found inside?
If Trevor never touched her, why did biological evidence remain on the club after someone attempted to clean it?
If Victoria had nothing to hide, why had she initially denied being near Brooke that evening?
The Vance money bought experienced lawyers.
