CHAPTER 3
I read Vanessa's message twenty times before sunrise.
Ask your daughter what really happened to Claire.
There are sentences that frighten you because they're threatening.
Others frighten you because some part of you worries they might contain truth.
Claire died in a car accident.
That was the fact my life had been built around for eighteen months.
Rain.
A curve outside Westport.
Her SUV crossing the center line.
A collision with a delivery truck.
Dead before the ambulance arrived.
There had been no mystery.
No suspicion.
No reason for Sophie to know anything.
Sophie hadn't even been in the car.
At least that's what I'd always been told.
By Vanessa.
At seven that morning, Detective Ortiz returned.
I handed her my phone.
She read the messages.
“Don't respond.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Has Vanessa ever suggested she knew something about your wife's death?”
“No.”
“Was she involved after the accident?”
“She came to the hospital.”
“Before family?”
I thought.
“Yes.”
Ortiz looked up.
“How did she know?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
I couldn't remember.
My mother had called me.
Claire's sister Emily had been in London.
My office knew within an hour.
But Vanessa?
I had never asked.
Grief had erased questions.
Ortiz wrote something down.
“I'm going to pull the accident file.”
“Do you think Vanessa killed my wife?”
“I didn't say that.”
“But you're checking.”
“I'm checking because she told you to ask your six-year-old about it.”
That morning, I made Sophie pancakes.
They were terrible.
She ate them anyway.
I watched every bite.
When she asked for another, I nearly cried.
Instead, I made one.
It burned.
She laughed.
It was the first time I'd heard her laugh since coming home.
“I think the pancake is dead,” she said.
I smiled.
“I run a billion-dollar company.”
“Maybe don't run a pancake company.”
I actually laughed.
For one minute, we were just father and daughter.
Then the doorbell rang.
My mother arrived.
Eleanor Sterling entered wearing pearls and anger.
“What on earth happened?”
I stiffened.
“Keep your voice down.”
She looked toward the stairs.
“Vanessa called me.”
Of course she had.
“What did she say?”
“That you lost your mind and threw her out because Sophie refused lunch.”
I stared at my mother.
“You came here believing her?”
“I came here because you've been unstable since Claire died.”
That sentence landed badly.
Sophie stood in the breakfast-room doorway.
She had heard it.
My mother saw her.
“Sophie, darling.”
Sophie stepped backward.
I moved between them.
“Not now.”
Eleanor frowned.
“Richard.”
“Vanessa starved her.”
My mother went silent.
“She hasn't eaten properly in months. She has bruises. Vanessa locked her in a storage room.”
Color drained from Eleanor's face.
“That can't be true.”
I felt something harden inside me.
“Why?”
“Because Vanessa loves that child.”
Sophie whispered behind me.
“No, she doesn't.”
My mother looked at her.
For the first time, doubt entered her face.
I crouched beside Sophie.
“You don't have to stay here.”
She ran upstairs.
My mother watched her go.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Vanessa told me Sophie has been lying.”
I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
“She told you?”
“For months.”
My stomach twisted.
“What exactly did she tell you?”
“That Sophie was jealous because you depended on Vanessa.”
I stared.
“And you never told me?”
“She asked me not to add to your stress.”
That phrase again.
Vanessa had managed all of us using the same weapon.
My work.
My grief.
My guilt.
My mother sat down slowly.
“What have I done?”
I wanted to blame her.
But I had done worse.
I had handed my daughter to Vanessa and thanked her for making my life easier.
“You believed the adult,” I said.
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
“So did I.”
Later that afternoon, Ortiz called.
Claire's accident file had one detail nobody had ever told me.
A witness reported seeing a second vehicle parked along the road shortly before the crash.
A black sedan.
Vanessa owned a black sedan then.
That didn't prove anything.
Millions of people did.
But there was more.
Claire's phone records showed three calls to Vanessa in the hour before she died.
The final call lasted eleven minutes.
I sat down.
“Why didn't police investigate?”
“They did. Vanessa said Claire had called because she was upset about your marriage.”
“My marriage?”
Ortiz paused.
“She told investigators Claire believed you were having an affair.”
I almost laughed.
It was absurd.
“With who?”
“Vanessa.”
I stood so fast my chair fell over.
“What?”
“She claimed Claire accused her of sleeping with you.”
“That never happened.”
“Did Vanessa ever make advances toward you?”
“No.”
I stopped.
There had been moments.
A hand lingering on my shoulder.
Wine after Sophie went to bed.
Vanessa telling me Claire would want me to move on.
I had shut it down.
Politely.
But I'd never considered what story she might tell someone else.
Ortiz continued.
“There is no evidence the accident was anything except an accident. But I'm going to speak with the original investigator.”
“Why would Vanessa send me that message?”
“Maybe to scare you.”
“Or because Sophie knows something.”
I didn't want to question my daughter.
Angela had warned me not to interrogate her.
Children could be confused by leading questions.
So that evening I sat on Sophie's bedroom floor while she built a castle from wooden blocks.
I said nothing about Claire.
Sophie did.
“Mommy didn't like Miss Vanessa.”
My hand froze.
“What makes you say that?”
Sophie placed another block carefully.
“I heard them fight.”
“When?”
“The day Mommy went away.”
I couldn't breathe.
“What were they fighting about?”
Sophie looked at me.
“Me.”
I waited.
She whispered.
“Mommy said Miss Vanessa had to stay away from me.”
A block slipped from her fingers.
Then Sophie said something that turned fear into something darker.
“Miss Vanessa told Mommy she'd be sorry.”
I kept my face calm for Sophie.
Inside, I was falling apart.
“Did you tell anyone?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
“You.”
My heart stopped.
“When?”
She looked confused.
“I called your work.”
That memory came back.
A phone call I'd barely listened to.
Daddy, Mommy was yelling.
And me answering while reading an email.
Adults argue sometimes, sweetheart.
Go find Vanessa.
I had told my terrified daughter to go find the woman her mother was fighting with.
I closed my eyes.
“Daddy?”
I opened them.
“I remember.”
Sophie crawled into my lap.
“Were you too busy?”
The question was innocent.
That made it unbearable.
“Yes.”
I hugged her.
“I was.”
My phone rang.
Ortiz.
I answered.
Her voice was sharper than before.
“We found Vanessa.”
“Where?”
“At the airport.”
“Leaving?”
“Yes.”
“For where?”
“Costa Rica.”
I looked at Sophie.
Ortiz continued.
“And Richard?”
May you like
“What?”
“She had Sophie's passport in her luggage.”
