“I was wrong,” Ernest said.
The room shifted.
“Over the past several months, my daughter Valerie was made to appear gravely ill. She was isolated. Sedated. Malnourished. Emotionally terrorized. And physically altered so that those around her would stop asking questions.”
A fork clinked against china.
Someone inhaled sharply.
Celeste turned toward him slowly. “Ernest—”
He cut her off with a look so cold several guests visibly straightened.
“The person responsible is in this room.”
Silence.
One of the trustees set down his glass.
The columnist’s eyes widened.
Celeste laughed once—softly, incredulously. “This is not funny.”
“No,” Ernest said. “It isn’t.”
He nodded toward the far wall.
A screen descended.
Celeste’s posture changed.
“Turn that off,” she said quietly.
The first video clip appeared.
Kitchen footage.
Timestamped.
Celeste crushing pills into a teapot.
Gasps moved around the room.
Before anyone could recover, a second clip played.
Security logs and access records, laid out clearly.
Then still images of false invoices tied to shell companies.
Then an audio file taken from Valerie’s recovered phone—distorted, shaky, but unmistakable.
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