Chapter 8 - THE WRONG WOMAN
Victoria pulled Rosie inside. Claire locked the door and called Bell.
Rosie had been with a child specialist at the station. A woman wearing a visitor badge had arrived, saying Victoria wanted Rosie brought to Claire’s apartment. Rosie had grown uneasy during the drive. At a traffic light, she opened the car door and ran.
“She followed me,” Rosie said. “I hid behind a trash can until she left.”
“You did the right thing,” Victoria told her, though her voice shook.
The blue box had been on the back seat. Rosie grabbed it because her drawings were inside.
Bell arrived with officers. The station’s security footage showed the woman using a badge issued to a contract employee who had quit months earlier. She wore a cap and kept her face turned from the cameras.
Rosie described her as having a gold ring shaped like a leaf.
Claire’s hand flew to her mouth. “I’ve seen that ring.”
“Where?” Bell asked.
“At Charles’s office. A woman used to bring files to the house. Maren.”
Maren Vale was Charles’s attorney. She had handled most of the paperwork after Rosalind disappeared, including the statement Lena was accused of signing.
Bell ordered a search for her.
Victoria sat with Rosie in Claire’s kitchen. The girl colored quietly while officers spoke in the living room. Victoria did not know how to be her mother again. She wanted to tell Rosie everything, but Lena was the mother Rosie remembered, and Lena was missing.
“Did Mama do something bad?” Rosie asked without looking up.
“No.”
“Mr. Crane said she stole me.”
Victoria knelt beside her chair. “She took care of you. I’m thankful she did.”
Rosie’s crayon stopped moving. “She said you loved me.”
“I do.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I loved you before I knew how to say your name.”
Rosie looked at her for a long moment. Then she pushed a red crayon across the table.
“Can you draw a bird?”
Victoria picked it up.
An hour later, Bell returned from a call. Police had located Maren’s car at a parking garage. She was gone, but her phone was inside.
It contained messages from Crane. One was sent just before Rosie appeared at Claire’s door:
GET THE BOX. LENA PUT THE ORIGINAL IN THERE.
“What original?” Victoria asked.
Rosie pointed to the box. “Mama told me not to show the secret pocket to anybody.”
Bell and Victoria exchanged a look.
Rosie lifted the false bottom of the box. Under it lay a flash drive and a sealed envelope addressed to Victoria.
Inside the envelope was a single page in Lena’s handwriting.
I found the video from the nursery. I know why Charles was afraid you would remember Tuesday.
Bell connected the drive to her secure laptop.
A video file opened. The date was eight years ago.
Victoria saw herself in the nursery, standing near Rosie’s bed.
Then Charles entered carrying a glass of water and said, “Drink this before we talk.”
May you like
Victoria reached across the table and closed the laptop.
“I remember that glass,” she said.
