Chapter 11 - VICTORIA’S VERSION
Victoria requested a meeting through her attorney.
Marcus refused to speak privately, but investigators arranged a recorded interview because she was signaling willingness to discuss Derek’s role in Nathan’s death.
Her initial account was designed to preserve one thing.
She claimed Derek manipulated her.
He told her Nathan planned to leave her penniless. He said Lily’s trust meant Marcus would control every decision in the child’s life. He convinced her the disputed inheritance directive was a legitimate way to preserve financial stability for Lily’s mother.
Victoria admitted the affair.
She admitted knowing about the financial diversions.
She denied knowing Derek threatened Nathan on the road.
Then investigators asked about Lily.
Victoria began crying.
She said Derek brought the fuel container and told her they needed to frighten Marcus into cooperating with a revised trust arrangement. She claimed she did not understand he intended to kill the child until he lit the match.
The living-room footage contradicted her.
So did Mae’s recording.
When the detective played Victoria’s own words about Lily’s death, she stopped crying.
For several minutes, she said nothing.
Then she asked for her lawyer.
Marcus listened to the interview recording afterward.
He had expected a confession that would explain how a mother became capable of threatening her own child. Instead he heard someone trying to make each decision sound like the unavoidable result of the decision before it.
Nathan was leaving.
Derek was desperate.
Marcus refused.
The money was inaccessible.
Lily’s survival kept the trust intact.
None of those facts forced Victoria to harm her daughter.
They were circumstances.
She made the choices.
The chapter’s new revelation came from Derek’s accounts.
He had been paying a private investigator to monitor Nathan before the accident. The investigator retained invoices, location summaries, and messages because Derek refused to pay the final bill.
One message, dated the night Nathan died, instructed the investigator to stop following Nathan because Derek would “handle the remaining drive.”
The investigator said he assumed Derek meant a business trip.
The timing no longer supported an innocent explanation.
The strongest development came when police obtained additional roadside footage from a commercial vehicle traveling behind Nathan. It showed Derek’s SUV approaching Nathan’s car shortly before the collision.
The footage did not establish every physical cause of the crash.
It did show dangerous driving and a confrontation that Derek had denied.
Prosecutors reopened the fatal-collision investigation.
Victoria learned about the footage before Marcus did.
Through counsel, she offered to provide messages proving Derek intended to confront Nathan that night.
Her cooperation might affect her own legal outcome.
It would not erase what she did in the living room.
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Marcus told Hannah one thing.
“Lily’s case comes first.”
