Vanessa had thrived her whole life in that unfairness, had learned to be the most believable person in any room and to count on it.

What she had blundered into, in my foyer, was one of the rare situations where believability did not matter, because the truth had been recorded independent of anyone’s ability to sell it.

For once, the honest woman did not need to be more persuasive than the liar.

She only needed to be right.

I wish I could say that this is how it always works, but I know that it is not, and Teresa knew it far better than I did, which is why she had been so afraid.

In most of the situations people like her find themselves in, there is no camera, no timestamp, no independent record; there is only her word against someone richer and more polished, and she had learned, over a lifetime, which way that usually goes.