Chapter 3 - THE CAMERA THEY FORGOT
The villa had security cameras.
Brandon knew that.
He had disabled the balcony camera before confronting me.
Investigators confirmed it stopped transmitting twenty-three minutes before the fall.
Brandon claimed the system frequently malfunctioned.
Maintenance logs disagreed.
But disabling a camera did not prove attempted murder.
Then investigators found another camera.
Not ours.
The neighboring property had recently installed a wide-angle security camera covering its driveway.
The edge of its frame captured part of our balcony.
Not perfectly.
No cinematic close-up.
No audio.
But enough.
It showed me backing away.
Brandon advancing.
His arms extending.
My body moving backward over the railing.
Margaret standing several feet away.
The video was preserved from the neighbor’s original system.
Metadata examined.
Chain of custody documented.
Investigators compared timing with the 911 call and our villa system outage.
The case changed.
Brandon was arrested.
Margaret was not.
Not yet.
Her lie became evidence.
But prosecutors still had to determine whether she participated in planning the violence or merely lied afterward.
I wanted both of them charged immediately.
My attorney told me something I hated:
May you like
“Wanting speed is understandable. Building a case that survives is better.”
So I waited.
