Chapter 8
The next afternoon, I came rolling into the condo lobby with my suitcase behind me.
The moment I stepped inside, several older women who were friendly with Mrs. Watson surrounded me.
“Oh, Lily, thank goodness you’re back.”
“You really should’ve known better than to let people use broken equipment.”
“Now look what happened. Mrs. Watson’s family is frantic.”
“You’re well-off. Just help pay for it. After all, the fire started because of your charger.”
That was the power of gossip.
In less than twelve hours, Mrs. Watson had turned black into white and white into black. She had recast herself as an innocent victim and made me the careless rich girl who lent out dangerous equipment and caused harm.
I didn’t argue.
I lowered my head and let myself look shaken.
“Aunties, let me handle the situation first,” I said softly. “We can talk later.”
I slipped through the crowd and went straight to the property office instead of the garage.
Manager Chen was there, smoking anxiously. The moment he saw me, he looked as relieved as if rescue had arrived.
“Miss Lin, you finally came. Mr. Vega said if we don’t resolve this today, he’s filing in court.”
“I need the surveillance footage,” I said calmly.
He blinked. “The police already reviewed some of it.”
“I want all public camera footage from the past two weeks,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Especially Section C. And I want a copy of the security patrol logs.”
That got his full attention.
He hesitated.
“Manager Chen,” I said quietly, “if I’m not liable for this, then the only other explanation is that the building failed to supervise unauthorized repair work and allowed strangers to tear apart wiring in the garage. Do you think Victor Vega will let the property office walk away from that?”
That landed exactly where I wanted it to.
He crushed out his cigarette immediately.
“I’ll have someone pull everything right now.”
The young guard, the one who had seen the so-called repair, took me to the monitoring room.
I got every backup I needed.
Then I took a long breath, touched up my makeup so my complexion looked even paler, and headed down to the garage.
Judgment was already waiting for me there.