Chapter 14 - The Call
I put the call on speaker while Marcus traced it.
Vanessa laughed softly. “You always did need an audience.”
“What do you want?”
“The trust copy from Emma’s room.”
“Why?”
“Because it belongs to me.”
“You stole it from my safe.”
“No. Graham gave it to me years ago.”
That confirmed more than she intended.
I kept her talking.
“You put Noah on the stairs.”
Silence.
Then: “You don’t understand what I was trying to do.”
“Explain it.”
“I needed Emma out of the house.”
“By making her look like she hurt a baby?”
“She was never supposed to touch him.”
My vision narrowed.
“So you admit it.”
“I admit nothing.”
Marcus pointed at his screen and mouthed: moving vehicle.
Vanessa continued. “Bring the paper to the old Hale greenhouse at midnight. Alone.”
“No.”
“Then you’ll never see the original footage.”
“I have enough.”
“You don’t.”
Her voice sharpened. “The copy you recovered from the system is incomplete. The camera recorded audio, Daniel. Emma said something on that staircase you need to hear.”
I looked at Emma.
She was standing beside Rachel, pale.
“What did she say?”
Vanessa lowered her voice.
“Ask your daughter what she found in my room before she found the trust.”
The call ended.
I turned to Emma.
She shook her head before I spoke.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Emma.”
“I said nothing.”
Her panic rose so fast Rachel stepped forward.
I crouched. “You’re not in trouble.”
Emma covered her ears.
“No, no, no.”
I waited.
Finally she whispered, “The picture.”
“What picture?”
She ran to her room and returned with a photograph folded into quarters.
It showed Vanessa standing outside St. Anne’s fertility clinic.
Beside her was Graham.
The date stamped on the back was two years before Vanessa and I supposedly met.
My stomach dropped.
Emma pointed to the third person in the photo.
A woman in a baseball cap, turned partly away from the camera.
But I knew the profile.
I knew the necklace.
I knew the smile.
May you like
Laura.
My wife had known Vanessa before I did.
