Chapter 11 - THE SECRET RACHEL KEPT
“Emily was Sophie’s mother.”
Ethan stared at his sister.
“I know who Emily was.”
His voice sharpened.
“What does Vanessa know?”
Rachel sat down.
Her hands shook.
“Emily came to me before the accident.”
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
His first wife, Emily, had died five years earlier in a highway crash.
Sophie had been eleven months old.
“What did she say?”
“She thought someone was watching her.”
Ethan frowned.
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
Rachel wiped her face.
“She said a woman kept appearing near her yoga studio.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
“What woman?”
“I never saw her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were destroyed after the accident.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Rachel cried.
“She made me promise.”
“Why?”
“Because she thought you’d think she was paranoid.”
Ethan stared.
“What else?”
Rachel swallowed.
“Three days before Emily died, she sent me a picture.”
She opened an old cloud account on her phone.
Scrolled.
Found it.
A woman stood across the street from Emily’s studio.
Sunglasses.
Blond hair.
Vanessa.
Ethan nearly dropped the phone.
“No.”
“I didn’t know her then.”
“When did you realize?”
Rachel’s tears fell.
“At your wedding.”
Ethan turned slowly.
“You knew Vanessa had been following Emily?”
“I wasn’t certain.”
“You had a photograph!”
“She looked different!”
“You said nothing!”
“I was scared!”
“Of what?”
“Of destroying you again!”
Ethan stepped away.
Rachel whispered, “I confronted Vanessa privately.”
His head snapped around.
“When?”
“Two weeks after the wedding.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she had worked with someone who went to Emily’s studio.”
“And you believed that?”
“No.”
Rachel’s voice cracked.
“But then she threatened me.”
“With what?”
“She knew about an accident I had in college.”
Ethan stared.
“What accident?”
Rachel looked down.
“A girl got hurt.”
“Emily?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
“I had been drinking.”
Silence.
Rachel covered her face.
“No one died. But Dad paid the settlement.”
Ethan understood.
Vanessa had found leverage.
Of course she had.
“She threatened to expose you.”
Rachel nodded.
Ethan was furious.
But beneath his anger sat something colder.
Vanessa had researched his family before marrying him.
Maybe before Emily died.
Hale arrived.
Ethan handed him the photograph.
“Find out everything.”
Hale stared.
“This was taken before you met Vanessa?”
“Eight months before.”
Hale’s face changed.
“That’s significant.”
Ethan whispered, “Was Emily’s accident really an accident?”
“We’ll reopen everything.”
The thought nearly broke him.
Then Hale’s radio crackled.
Vanessa had been spotted at an abandoned home in Malibu Canyon.
The address from her text.
Hale looked at Ethan.
“She wants you there.”
Ethan nodded.
“So let’s give her what she wants.”
This time Hale didn’t argue.
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Because if Vanessa Bennett had played a role in Emily’s death too, they weren’t chasing a frightened woman anymore.
They were hunting someone who had been building Ethan’s tragedy years before she ever became his wife.
