Chapter 10 - Vanessa Comes Back
Vanessa appeared at 3:12 the next morning.
Barefoot.
Bleeding.
Wearing a gray sweatshirt over her wedding dress.
She collapsed outside a police precinct in Queens.
The officers found a tracking device sewn into the hem of her gown.
They also found bruises around her neck.
She refused medical treatment until she spoke to me.
“I’m not going,” I told Daniel.
“Yes, you are.”
“She helped kill my baby.”
“She may know where Richard is.”
“I don’t care where Richard is.”
Daniel looked at Lily sleeping in the portable crib.
“You care where he’ll go next.”
That got me moving.
Vanessa sat in an interview room with a paper cup of water.
No makeup.
No diamonds.
Without all the polished details, she looked younger.
And far more ordinary.
She looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Try something less useless.”
Her lips pressed together.
“That’s fair.”
“No, fair would’ve been you choking on the coffee instead of me.”
She looked down.
For a second, I thought she might cry.
She didn’t.
Good.
“I put the medication in your drink,” she said.
“I know.”
“Richard told me it would cause mild bleeding.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
The honesty caught me off guard.
“I knew it could end the pregnancy.”
“Why?”
“Because he promised to make me chief operating officer.”
I stared at her.
Not love.
Not desperation.
A title.
“You killed my child for a promotion.”
“I told myself it wasn’t a child yet.”
“Did that help?”
“No.”
Her answer came too fast.
It sounded practiced.
“Then why did you keep helping him?”
“Because after the first bad thing, the second one felt smaller.”
The room went silent.
That was the closest she came to sounding human.
Not innocent.
Human.
She slid a key across the table.
“Richard keeps original records at a storage facility in Newark.”
“What records?”
“Payments. Medical orders. Videos.”
“Why didn’t you give them to police?”
“He’ll destroy them if he knows I’m alive.”
“You walked into a police station.”
“He already knows.”
Daniel entered.
“We have a problem.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
It showed smoke rising from an industrial building.
The storage facility.
“Fire started fifteen minutes ago,” he said.
Vanessa stood.
“There’s another copy.”
“Where?” I asked.
She looked at Adrian, who had just entered behind Daniel.
“In the Carter family mausoleum.”
Adrian stopped.
Vanessa continued.
“Richard hid a server beneath his father’s grave.”
Daniel frowned.
“That sounds insane.”
“It’s Richard.”
Unfortunately, that made sense.
Adrian took the key.
“I know how to enter.”
“No,” Daniel said. “Police handle it.”
“We don’t know which grave.”
“I do.”
Adrian looked at me.
“My grandfather once told me the family buried more secrets than bodies.”
Two hours later, police surrounded the Carter mausoleum.
Adrian entered with detectives.
They found the hidden staircase beneath a marble plaque.
They found the server.
They also found a chair.
Rope.
Blood.
And a recent photograph of Lily taped to the wall.
On the back, someone had written:
May you like
The mother is temporary. The heir is not.
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