Chapter 9 - What Vanessa Wanted
Vanessa wore a cream-colored sweater in the interview room.
Someone had brought her fresh clothes.
Her diamonds were gone.
My uniform had been cut off my back and placed in an evidence bag.
The difference sat between us before either of us spoke.
Ruiz stood behind the glass.
“You look tired,” Vanessa said.
“Tell me about my father.”
“He was stubborn.”
I kept my hands beneath the table.
She leaned forward.
“Frank killed him.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me.”
“Why?”
“To remind me what happens when people become inconvenient.”
“Did you become inconvenient?”
Her jaw tightened.
“I helped make you rich,” she said toward the mirror, though Luca wasn’t behind it. “Nobody talks about that part.”
I waited.
Vanessa looked back at me.
“There’s a phone. Frank kept it after your father died. Messages, pictures. His insurance.”
“Where?”
“In his office at the mansion.”
“The police searched it.”
“Not the place I mean.”
I said nothing.
She studied me.
“Tell Luca I helped. Tell him I tried to stop Frank.”
“You shoved me into glass.”
“You were going to destroy everything.”
The words came out so easily.
Then she seemed to remember the camera.
“I panicked.”
“My mother could have lost her daughter last night.”
Vanessa looked at the tabletop.
For a second, I thought she might finally hear herself.
Then she said, “You shouldn’t have taken the photograph.”
I stood.
“Hannah, wait.”
“Where’s the phone?”
She hesitated.
“Behind the false back of the bottom filing drawer. Frank thinks I never saw him open it.”
I reached for the door.
“He’ll come for you,” she said.
I turned.
“Then you’d better hope the police find him first.”
Ruiz met me outside.
“You did well.”
“I don’t feel well.”
“That’s different.”
At the mansion, officers found the false compartment.
Inside was a handgun, two passports, and a phone wrapped in a grocery bag.
The battery was dead.
While the lab worked on it, Luca called me.
“Your mother’s safe. Nico’s with her.”
“Where are you?”
“My study.”
His voice sounded wrong.
“What happened?”
A long pause.
Then he said, “I found the letter I signed.”
May you like
“What letter?”
“The one that got your father fired.”
