Chapter 5
The police wouldn’t let me open the drive.
I hated them for it.
For exactly six minutes.
Then I realized they were right.
If Emily had left evidence behind, I wasn’t going to destroy it by acting out of anger.
So I watched a detective seal the USB drive.
I watched him write the evidence number.
I watched him carry away the last message my wife might ever have left me.
And then I sat on the kitchen floor with Maisie asleep against my chest.
The party was over.
Guests had left.
Police tape blocked the upstairs bedroom.
Vanessa was gone.
Adrian was gone.
My mother sat at the table staring at Emily’s bracelet inside an evidence bag.
Claire made coffee no one drank.
It was nearly two in the morning when Maisie stirred.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Is Vanessa coming back?”
“No.”
She studied my face.
“Ever?”
I swallowed.
“No, baby.”
Her shoulders relaxed.
That hurt.
My daughter felt safer knowing the woman I had planned to marry would never return.
“How long were you scared of her?” I asked.
Maisie looked down.
“Lots of sleeps.”
“What did she do?”
Claire stopped moving.
My mother lifted her head.
Maisie traced a button on my shirt.
“She got mad when I say baby goes away.”
“Did she hurt you?”
My voice nearly disappeared on the last word.
Maisie thought about it.
“She squeezed.”
“Where?”
She touched her upper arm.
I closed my eyes.
“Did she hit you?”
“No.”
“Did she lock you anywhere?”
Her silence answered me.
I forced myself to stay calm.
“Maisie.”
“In the closet.”
My mother stood so suddenly the chair fell backward.
Claire swore.
I held up one hand.
“Which closet?”
“Big one.”
“Upstairs?”
She nodded.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“In the dark?”
Another nod.
I pressed my lips against her hair.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I asked, “Why?”
“Because I looked at baby.”
“What do you mean?”
“She took it off. I saw.”
The fake belly.
Maisie had walked in while Vanessa wasn’t wearing it.
“And she put you in the closet?”
“She said I tell lies.”
My chest tightened until breathing hurt.
“Did you tell anyone?”
“I told you.”
Four words.
That was all.
I told you.
I had no defense.
I remembered the night.
Maisie cried at bedtime.
She said Vanessa locked her away.
I assumed she meant Vanessa had put her in time-out after a tantrum.
Vanessa told me Maisie had been throwing toys.
I believed Vanessa.
I kissed my daughter and told her we had to respect rules.
Now she was looking at me with exhausted little eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
She touched my cheek.
“You didn’t know.”
I nearly broke apart.
I should have known.
Parents were supposed to know.
At seven the next morning, the detective called.
His name was Marcus Bell.
He asked me to come to the station alone.
“Did you open the drive?”
“Yes.”
My heart began pounding.
“What’s on it?”
“You need to see this.”
I left Maisie with Claire and my mother.
Before I walked out, Maisie ran after me.
“Daddy!”
I turned.
She held Bunny.
The seam had been temporarily closed with safety pins.
“Take him?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“For brave.”
My throat tightened.
I took the rabbit.
“Okay.”
Detective Bell was waiting in a small interview room.
A laptop sat on the table.
So did a box of tissues.
That frightened me more than anything.
“Sit down.”
“What did Emily leave?”
He folded his hands.
“Several folders. Financial documents. Photographs. Audio recordings. A written statement.”
“About Vanessa?”
“About Victoria Mercer.”
I sat.
Bell opened a file.
Emily appeared on screen.
Alive.
My breath stopped.
She was sitting in our old guest room.
Her hair was tied back.
No makeup.
She looked tired.
Scared.
The timestamp was eight days before she died.
She looked into the camera.
“If Ethan is watching this, then either I finally got brave enough to tell him everything…”
She paused.
“…or I didn’t get the chance.”
My hand covered my mouth.
Emily continued.
“I don’t know who I can trust.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Ethan, I’m sorry.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“I found financial records connected to your father. At first I thought it was old tax fraud. Then I found payments made after his death.”
She held up papers.
“One name kept appearing. Rebecca Mercer.”
My hands began trembling.
“I looked her up. She died years ago. But she had a daughter.”
Emily looked down.
“Victoria Mercer.”
A photograph appeared on screen.
Vanessa.
Younger.
But unmistakable.
“She has been near our house twice.”
I stopped breathing.
“She says she’s researching her family. She approached me at work. She claims your father was her biological father.”
Emily wiped her eyes.
“I didn’t believe her at first.”
She continued.
“Then she showed me DNA results.”
I shut my eyes.
“I wanted to tell you immediately. But then she threatened us.”
Bell paused the video.
I stared at him.
“Play it.”
“Ethan—”
“Play it.”
The video resumed.
“She knows about Maisie. She knows her daycare. She knows my schedule. She told me if I brought this to you before she recovered what your father stole from Rebecca, she would make sure our family paid.”
Emily’s voice cracked.
“I told her I don’t have whatever she wants.”
She breathed deeply.
“But I think I found it.”
My pulse jumped.
Bell leaned closer.
Emily continued.
“Your father didn’t steal money from Rebecca.”
She held up another document.
“He hid money for her.”
I stared at the screen.
“What?”
Bell said nothing.
Emily explained.
“The accounts weren’t your father’s secret fortune. They belonged to several people involved in a fraud scheme. Rebecca helped track the funds.”
She shook her head.
“When she tried to leave, someone started killing the paper trail.”
My father died.
Rebecca died.
And eventually Emily.
“What did Dad do?”
On-screen, Emily answered as if she heard me.
“I think your father tried to expose them.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“All these years…”
The man I had secretly resented for leaving debts.
For cheating.
For lying.
Maybe none of it was what I thought.
Emily continued.
“There’s a name in every set of records.”
She held up a page.
“Thomas Vale.”
Bell paused the video.
“Know him?”
The name felt familiar.
Then I remembered.
A family friend.
A man who attended my father’s funeral.
A man who sent Christmas cards when I was younger.
A man I hadn’t seen in years.
“He was Dad’s business attorney.”
Bell nodded.
“He’s also Dr. Meredith Lane’s father.”
The psychologist named in the false documents about Maisie.
My blood went cold.
“No.”
Bell turned the laptop.
A family photograph appeared.
Thomas Vale stood beside an elegant woman.
Their daughter, Dr. Meredith Lane.
And beside them—
Vanessa.
The picture was recent.
All of them smiling.
“Why is Vanessa with them?”
“We’re working on that.”
“Was Thomas involved in my father’s death?”
“We don’t know.”
“Emily?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Bell looked at me carefully.
“We know Thomas Vale transferred forty thousand dollars to Adrian Cole six weeks ago.”
My heart dropped.
“For what?”
“We’re trying to determine that.”
I gripped the table.
“Adrian said he was cooperating.”
“He is.”
“Then ask him.”
“We did.”
“And?”
Bell hesitated.
“He says the payment was for the original Emily file.”
I stared.
“Thomas bought information about my dead wife?”
“According to Adrian.”
“Why?”
Bell leaned back.
“Because somebody has been searching for that USB drive for three years.”
I thought of Vanessa trying to take Maisie’s rabbit.
Her complaints that it was dirty.
Her attempts to replace it.
Her anger whenever Maisie carried it downstairs.
“She knew.”
“She suspected.”
“Did she know Emily hid it in the rabbit?”
“Apparently not.”
I looked at Bunny sitting on the table beside me.
My wife had trusted our daughter with evidence without even knowing it.
Bell touched the laptop.
“There’s more.”
“How much more?”
“Enough that we reopened Emily’s crash investigation this morning.”
My throat closed.
“Reopened?”
“The brake line damage was real.”
I stared at him.
“We’re treating her death as suspicious.”
I couldn’t speak.
“For three years you told me it was an accident.”
“I wasn’t the investigator then.”
“You’re telling me somebody may have killed my wife.”
“Yes.”
“And that person may still be near my daughter.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“I’m taking Maisie and leaving town.”
Bell stood too.
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me no.”
“Ethan, listen to me. If you disappear now, whoever is involved may panic.”
“Good.”
“That makes people unpredictable.”
“My daughter has already been locked in closets and threatened.”
“We can place protection at your home.”
“My home is where this happened!”
Bell’s phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Then answered.
“Bell.”
His expression changed.
“When?”
He looked at me.
“Is she hurt?”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
Bell held up a hand.
“Lock the building down. I’m coming.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
He grabbed his jacket.
“Vanessa was being transferred for arraignment.”
“And?”
“The transport vehicle was struck at an intersection.”
I stared at him.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
Bell headed for the door.
“She escaped.”
I stopped.
Bell turned back.
“And the officer who saw which direction she went says Vanessa wasn’t running away from police.”
“What was she doing?”
May you like
Bell’s face hardened.
“She was shouting your daughter’s name.”
