Marcus stood alone on his patio twenty minutes later.
Local police had arrived.
Crime-scene photographs continued.
Victoria had been taken to the front of the house.
Torres walked toward Marcus.
“You okay?”
He looked at the water.
“No.”
She nodded.
“That’s honest.”
“My niece was supposed to swim Saturday.”
Torres looked at the glass.
“I know.”
Marcus took a breath.
“What happens now?”
“That depends on evidence.”
“You heard her.”
“I heard a statement.”
“That’s different from proving every prior incident.”
Marcus nodded.
Torres appreciated that.
“What about the financial investigation?”
“Separate.”
“Unless evidence connects them.”
Marcus looked toward the gate.
“I think it does.”
Torres watched him.
“Why?”
“Her face.”
“That isn't evidence.”
“I know.”
“Anything else?”
Marcus thought.
Then remembered.
“Tuesday.”
“What?”
“A truck was parked across from my house.”
“What kind?”
“White commercial pickup.”
“Logo?”
“Northline.”
Torres's expression changed.
“You didn't report that.”
“I didn't know it mattered.”
“Now?”
Marcus looked toward the glass.
“Now I think it might.”
Investigators pulled neighborhood camera footage.
The Northline truck had indeed passed Marcus's house multiple times.
Monday.
Tuesday.
Wednesday.
The vehicle was registered to a Northline supervisor named Evan Pike.
Pike had no work order in Crestmont Ridge that week.
When agents interviewed him, he initially said he was inspecting storm drains.
There had been no storm.
Then he said Victoria asked him to check “a homeowner compliance issue.”
Victoria had no authority to dispatch association vendors onto private property without board approval for that type of work.
No approval existed.
Pike’s phone placed him near Marcus’s house.
But not inside the backyard.
Investigators needed more.
They got it from a hardware store.
Three days before the first glass appeared, Victoria purchased contractor bags.
Long-handled cutters.
Heavy gloves.
And multiple glass decorative bottles.
Cash.
The store had cameras.
One employee remembered her because she complained that the bottles were “ridiculously expensive for something being broken anyway.”
That sentence became memorable.
Still, investigators did not leap to conclusion.
Buying glass was not a crime.
Using it could be.
The pool camera caught Thursday.
Earlier days remained uncertain.
Then Marcus's filtration system provided something unexpected.
The pool technician had saved fragments from Monday and Tuesday in labeled containers because Marcus specifically asked him not to discard them.
Forensic comparison found several fragments matched bottle types visible in Victoria’s hardware-store purchase.
Not individually unique.
But consistent.
Then a search warrant changed everything.
Victoria's garage contained additional broken decorative bottles.
Same brands.
Same colors.
Same unusual patterned glass.
And one bag contained fragments that fit physically with a piece recovered from Marcus’s pool.
A fracture match.