Margaret remembered her late husband's tech advice from years ago.
He always set up secondary cloud storage for safety.
He wanted all camera files saved in two places.
Margaret walked over to her late husband's metal filing cabinet.
She unlocked the bottom drawer with a small silver key.
Inside lay an old black notebook with worn pages.
She flipped through the handwritten pages with care.
On page twelve she saw a web address and password.
It was an automatic cloud backup for home security.
Marcus did not know about this hidden secondary system.
Margaret ran back to her computer keyboard immediately.
She typed the secret cloud web address into her browser.
She entered the old account password with shaky fingers.
The screen loaded a new blue screen with video icons.
A long list of files appeared on the screen.
She found the video file from two hours ago.
She clicked the play button with a hopeful heart.
The video started playing clearly in high definition.
She saw herself standing near the wooden stairs.
She saw Emily shouting with yellow papers in hand.
She saw Emily take two steps backward and slip.
Margaret was standing three feet away from her stepdaughter.
Her hands never touched Emily's clothes at all.
The video clearly showed a pure tragic accident.
Margaret cried tears of sudden relief and joy.
Then she noticed something else on the clear tape.
Before Emily fell she looked down at the floor.
A clear wire was stretched low across the step.
Marcus had been inside the house earlier that morning.
He had placed that thin wire on the staircase.
He wanted Margaret or Emily to trip and fall.
He wanted to blame Margaret to get the entire estate.
Margaret downloaded the video clip onto a flash drive.
A heavy knock sounded at her front door below.
The police officers had finally arrived at the mansion.