Chapter 10 - THE SAFE
Vanessa gave the safe’s code to the police. Nathan went with an officer to the mansion to open it.
The nursery had once belonged to all four girls. Claire had painted the ceiling with little silver stars. After she died, Nathan could barely enter the room. Vanessa had moved the girls into separate bedrooms and used the nursery for storage.
Inside the safe were stacks of cash, copies of bank records, and four small notebooks. Each notebook had a girl’s name on the cover.
Nathan opened Emma’s.
Dates. Meals. Rules. Notes about which child cried, argued, asked for Nathan, or tried to call Rachel.
He closed it.
The officer took photographs before removing the contents. In a separate envelope were printouts of emails between Vanessa and Peter. Vanessa had accepted money to approve false staffing invoices. She had also warned Peter twice that the girls were hungry. Peter’s replies told her to handle the household herself.
The records showed what both had done. They offered no simple person for Nathan to blame in place of the other.
Vanessa met Nathan outside the mansion. She stood beside her car, hands deep in her coat pockets.
“I started writing things down because Peter frightened me,” she said.
“You were watching the girls suffer.”
“Yes.”
“Why keep notes instead of feeding them?”
She looked toward the house. “At first, I thought I was being strict. Then I was ashamed of how far it had gone. Every day I meant to change it. I kept finding a reason to wait.”
Nathan remembered Lily begging him not to take the bread. He had no answer for Vanessa.
Her eyes filled. “Can I see them?”
“Not today.”
She nodded once.
Back at Rachel’s house, the girls were building a blanket fort. Sophie had made a sign for the entrance: EVERYONE CAN COME IN IF THEY ARE NICE.
Nathan sat on the floor beside them.
His phone rang. Diane had found another account tied to Peter’s company. The withdrawals had begun before Nathan married Vanessa.
“How long before?” he asked.
“Two years.”
May you like
Nathan looked up at Claire’s photograph on Rachel’s shelf.
Two years earlier, Claire had still been alive.
