Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN IN THE MIRROR
Adrian went home feeling like his memories had been vandalized.
Vanessa’s favorite perfume.
Emily had worn something similar.
Vanessa’s love of old black-and-white movies.
Emily had loved them.
Vanessa once told him her mother used to play piano.
Emily played piano.
How many things had he mistaken for connection?
How much of Vanessa had ever been real?
Marcus arrived with another discovery.
“We recovered data from Vanessa’s old tablet.”
Adrian stared at him.
“How?”
“She left it behind in the guest office.”
“What’s on it?”
“Search history.”
Marcus opened a folder.
How to gain trust of grieving widower
child inheritance legal guardian access
how long to establish common law rights
signs of complicated grief in surviving spouse
how to report unstable parent anonymously
Adrian felt nauseous.
Then Marcus opened another file.
Photographs.
Hundreds.
Screenshots from Adrian’s social media.
Emily’s obituary.
Sophie’s school schedule.
Pictures of their house.
A folder labeled:
E
Inside were photographs of Emily.
Vanessa had saved nearly two hundred images of her.
Clothing.
Hair.
Jewelry.
Even makeup.
Adrian stepped back.
“This woman is insane.”
Marcus shook his head.
“No.”
Adrian looked at him.
“She’s calculated.”
That was worse.
Much worse.
Meanwhile, police located Vanessa at a hotel forty miles away.
But by the time officers arrived, she was gone.
Her rental car remained in the parking lot.
Her phone was inside.
She had switched vehicles.
Vanessa was running.
That afternoon, Sophie came home from school with a sealed envelope.
Adrian almost exploded.
“Who gave you this?”
Sophie looked frightened.
“It was in my backpack.”
“Did anyone touch your bag?”
“I don’t know.”
He opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph of Emily.
A picture Adrian had never seen before.
Emily standing beside a lake.
On the back, Vanessa had written:
Ask your father what Emily knew before she died.
Adrian read it twice.
His heart started racing.
Daniel arrived within an hour.
“Could be manipulation.”
“Probably.”
“But?”
“But we check.”
They searched Emily’s old files.
Emails.
Phone backups.
Cloud storage.
Most contained ordinary family memories.
Then Daniel found a draft email.
Never sent.
Dated nine days before Emily died.
Recipient: Adrian.
Subject:
There’s Something I Need to Tell You
The message contained only three lines.
Adrian, I don’t know if I’m imagining this, but a woman has been watching Sophie’s school.
She was there again today.
If anything happens to me, please don’t ignore this.
Attached was a blurry photograph.
A woman standing across the street from Sophie’s preschool.
Adrian zoomed in.
His blood froze.
May you like
Even though the image was three years old, he recognized the face.
Vanessa.
