Chapter 99
The surveillance showed Betty standing at the end of the second-floor corridor, holding a vase, a deceptively sweet smile on her lips.
Soon, Zinnia appeared on the screen. Everyone in Class 19 kept their eyes glued to it. The moment Betty saw her, her smile visibly widened. That deceptively sweet grin sent chills down their spines; their hearts clenched with unease.
“Zinnia.” The mechanical, echoing voice sent chills through them, and the tone was eerily unsettling.
“What is it?” Zinnia replied, her voice flat yet gentle, still untouched by the troubles to come after just returning.
Betty delivered the vase with a smile. “Zinnia, this is Dad’s favorite vase. I don’t think you’ve ever seen one like this before. Would you like a closer look?”
Watching the scene unfold, everyone in Class 19 held their breath, hearts pounding, fearing that Betty might drop the vase and smash it.
Zinnia stared at the vase as Betty deliberately loosened her grip. Worried it might fall and break, Zinnia instinctively reached out to catch it.
But before her hand could even get close—with at least half an arm’s length still between them—the vase slipped from Betty’s fingers and shattered on the floor with a sharp crash.
The crash made everyone in Class 19 jump, a wave of unease washing over them.
“Zinnia! How could you break Dad’s favorite vase?” Betty asked in feigned panic.
Hearing Betty’s voice, everyone in Class 19 felt nothing but annoyance.
Betty’s shriek brought Donald and Maelis rushing over. Zinnia, facing this for the first time, was momentarily stunned. “It wasn’t me! You dropped it before I could even catch it.”
“Zinnia, I thought you liked Dad’s vase, so I wanted to show it to you. But how could you break Dad’s vase?” Betty cooed with faux gentleness, her tone dripping with feigned innocence.
Donald glared at Zinnia, his face darkening with anger.
“It wasn’t me! Betty dropped the vase. She said she wanted to show it, but let go before I touched it. Why are you framing me?” Zinnia insisted, frowning, her voice growing firmer. She couldn’t understand why Betty did this.
But Donald and Maelis didn’t believe her. Maelis cast a disappointed glance at Zinnia, then turned to comfort Donald. They didn’t believe Betty would do such a thing.
Maelis and Betty steered Donald away, leaving Zinnia shrouded in bewildered solitude. No one cared about hearing her explanation. They were convinced she was the one at fault.
“Damn it, is Betty completely shameless?” Class 19 students erupted in fury as they watched.
The footage wasn’t continuous, stitched-together clips from multiple cameras, so it looked grainy. But that still made everyone boil with rage at what they saw.
Lydia didn’t say a word. She saved the video, closed the tab, and continued her search. With Zinnia providing the precise timeline, locating the footage wasn’t particularly difficult.
Just as Zinnia had said, Betty let her guard down completely. Betty was convinced Zinnia could never clear her name and the Shaw family would never believe her. She grew careless in her later schemes, which made it much easier to find the remaining videos.
Betty deliberately cut Maelis’s necklace with a small knife while going upstairs.
Betty poisoned Timothy’s soup. She intercepted the maid on her way upstairs, secretly spiking the soup.
Though she tried to conceal her movements, Lydia zoomed in on every frame. With everyone scrutinizing the footage, Lydia forwarded it to everyone’s phones to see it easily.
“Lydia, Lydia! Zoom in here. I see she’s holding a white packet,” Maisie exclaimed, holding up her phone and pointing at the screen for Lydia to pause.
Lydia complied, zooming in on her laptop screen, and the image on everyone’s phones enlarged at the same time.
They could see Betty clutching a small white packet in her hand. Her fingers trembled, causing some powder to spill out. Betty darted furtive glances from side to side, as if checking for witnesses.
It was now certain that Betty had poisoned the soup. Later, while Zinnia was away, Betty stealthily sprinkled the same powder outside Zinnia’s door in an attempt to frame her.
Right after Zinnia took out the trash, Betty, with a look of disgust, immediately went to the garbage bin, pulled out the trash bag Zinnia had just discarded, and fished out Yosef’s bid documents she had stolen.
She tore them into tiny shreds one by one before stuffing the pieces back into Zinnia’s trash bag.
But Howard’s case was trickier. Lydia turned to Zinnia. “Zinnia, do you remember roughly when Howard’s motorcycle got sabotaged?”
Howard knew his motorcycle broke down that day, but without an approximate timeframe for when the bolt went missing, it was tricky to track down the relevant footage.
While the previous evidence was enough to clear Zinnia’s name, if they were going to strike back, they had to do it decisively, making sure every accusation landed squarely on Betty.
After a moment’s thought, Zinnia replied, “I went to the garden around eleven that day. Since Betty said she saw me, it must have been after eleven. Howard rode off at noon, so the time frame we’re looking at is between eleven and twelve.”
By the time the incident with Howard happened, Zinnia had already been slandered with countless accusations. So, Howard accused Zinnia of trying to harm him.
Betty appeared, feigning hesitation as she said she saw Zinnia near Howard’s car. In that instant, all eyes blazing with anger and suspicion turned to Zinnia.
Even Maelis looked at her with regret, fear, and deep disappointment. It didn’t matter that Betty only said she saw Zinnia; they had already thought Zinnia sabotaged the motorcycle.
Facing their disappointed stares, Zinnia also felt disappointed. The details of that day had faded; all she remembered were those furious, hateful eyes fixed on her.
With the approximate timeframe set, Lydia tapped away at the keyboard again. The initial footage matched what Zinnia had said: she went to the garden at 11 a.m., and Howard’s motorcycle, a sleek high-end bike gleaming in the sunlight, was parked right by the garden.
Zinnia kept about 3 feet from the motorcycle. She didn’t even glance at it before walking off. She wasn’t the culprit. Everyone held their breath, fingers flying across their phone screens as they searched for any sign of Betty.
Luckily, they didn’t have to search for long. Right after Zinnia left, a figure in white appeared behind her. Everyone recognized her instantly. It was Betty.
She darted furtive glances left and right as if surveying her surroundings. Finally, her gaze settled on Zinnia, who had already walked away. A sly smirk played on her lips as she deliberately made her way, step by step, toward Howard’s motorcycle.