Those few hot-blooded girls jumped right in behind him.
"Officer, we can all testify! Jeanette is scum!"
"That's right! You have to arrest her!"
The lead officer frowned and turned to Jeanette.
"Was it you?"
Jeanette stood ramrod straight, her gaze open and unflinching.
"It wasn't me. I never even went near the science building today."
A girl suddenly shoved her way in from outside.
"You're lying!"
"I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes!"
She pointed at Jeanette and said loudly,
"At one thirty this afternoon, I happened to be passing the third-floor stairwell of the science building. I heard a guy screaming inside, and the second I ran over, I saw Jeanette come bolting out in a total panic!"
Hilary looked at the girl and cried even harder.
"Melissa Finch, thank you for being willing to stand up and speak for me…"
Melissa threw her shoulders back, playing the hero rescuing the damsel.
Caroline whipped her head toward me, sneering again and again.
"Mr. Fox, we've got both witnesses and evidence now. What else do you have to say?"
Davina rushed at me and clamped down on my arm, her face streaked with tears and snot.
"Owen, I'm begging you! Just make your daughter confess! Try for a lighter sentence."
She turned to the officer.
"Officer, we admit it! We'll pay! We'll pay whatever it costs!"
Hilary let Melissa help him to his feet.
He looked at me, his voice soft, yet every word aimed to cut.
"Sir, I know you want to protect your daughter, but facts are facts."
"As long as Jeanette is willing to kneel in front of the whole school and confess, and give up all her scholarships and her guaranteed grad-school spot…"
He paused and let out a sigh.
"I can go to the police station and drop the case, sign a letter of forgiveness, keep her out of prison."
The students around us broke into thunderous applause.
"Hilary is too kind!"
"Scum like that deserves to die, and he's still willing to give her a chance!"
"Jeanette, get down on your knees and thank him already!"
Every ounce of malice, every bit of the pressure, peaked in that single moment.
I smoothed my jacket, my tone calm.
"Hilary."
"You said a moment ago that the cameras on the third floor of the science building had been broken for a month. Correct?"
Hilary froze for a beat and instinctively shot a glance at Vice President Whitney.
Whitney let out a cold snort.
"Mr. Fox, what else is there to argue? The maintenance department's repair records say it plainly. The cameras there really were broken."
I smiled.
"Vice President Whitney, you must have a short memory for a busy man."
I pulled a document stamped with a red seal out of my bag and slapped it straight down on Caroline's desk.
"Yesterday afternoon, in my capacity as Jeanette's parent, I donated a three-million-dollar 4K panoramic surveillance system to Kingsport University, with no blind spots."
The expression on Hilary's face went rigid.
I fixed my eyes on his, spacing out each word.
"As luck would have it, the third-floor stairwell of the science building was exactly one of the core zones in the first batch of camera installations."
"At twelve noon sharp today, the installation team just finished calibration. It went fully online across the network."
