Jade watched Rose Vale cry beside Ty's stolen face and believed the tears.
That was the first problem.
A planted witness usually broke in the wrong place. A grieving witness bent around the one true thing she still carried. Someone like Zunoder only had to give that true thing a new frame and stand close enough for the crowd to mistake grief for proof.
Rose looked older than the woman from the basement footage. Her hair had silver at the temples, and the blue lanyard around her neck held an old Mercy General badge that kept turning when her hand shook.
The camera caught the name.
Rose Vale. Retired nurse.
Jade wrote it on the pad and underlined the first initial.
R. Vale.
Waddell saw the mark and nodded once.
Caelin's caption filled the center screen with fast, ugly facts. Rose had been real staff. Retired last year. Clean background. Emergency nurse on the night Hamberton died.
