Chapter 5
Tasha stayed with Ruby while I met Vanessa at a café near the river, a place with fogged windows, clattering dishes, and enough people talking at once to make a private conversation difficult.
Sergeant Price sat in a booth near the back, close enough to see me but pretending to study a mug of coffee. He had insisted on coming nearby. I had insisted he let me speak to Vanessa first.
Then Vanessa walked in.
She looked like she hadn’t slept. Her coat was buttoned wrong, and a strand of hair clung to the wet skin beside her temple. She stopped when she saw me, her eyes flicking past my shoulder to Price.
“You brought him.”
“He’s nearby.”
“Of course.”
She slid into the chair across from me. For a second, neither of us spoke. The café smelled of burnt coffee and cinnamon, and somewhere behind the counter a milk steamer shrieked.
I kept my hands wrapped around my paper cup. “You went into Ruby’s room.”
Vanessa’s face tightened. “Yes.”
“You lifted her mattress.”
“Yes.”
“And took something Eric hid there.”
She glanced toward the window. “I didn’t know he’d hidden it in her room until I found it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.” She pressed her lips together. “It isn’t.”
I had spent the drive imagining her explanations. None of them had made her choice feel less frightening. Seeing her now—my daughter’s aunt, wearing the same silver ring she’d worn to Ruby’s birthday party—made the distance between us feel worse, not smaller.
“Why did you go there?” I asked.
“Eric called me. He said he needed me to get something before you found it.”
“What did he tell you it was?”
“A phone he’d left behind.”
“Under Ruby’s mattress?”
“I didn’t know where it was. He said to look in her room.” Her voice cracked on the last word. “I know how that sounds.”
“It sounds like you went into my child’s bedroom for my husband.”
Vanessa lowered her gaze. “I went in because I thought I could keep something from getting worse.”
I gave a short, humorless laugh. “That’s what people say when they’ve already helped make it worse.”
She flinched. I didn’t take it back.
For a moment, she looked toward the café door, as if considering leaving. Then she reached inside her coat and set a black phone on the table between us.
I recognized it from the camera feed. It was small enough to disappear in a hand, with a scratch across the back.
“Here,” she said.
I didn’t touch it. “You took it from Ruby’s room, and then you kept it.”
“I didn’t give it to him.”
“Why not?”
“Because when I picked it up, it buzzed.” Her fingers curled around the edge of the table. “I saw your address on the screen. Then I remembered what he’d said about you going home after the airport.”
My stomach tightened. “You heard him say that?”
“I heard pieces. Not all of it.” She looked at me straight on. “I should have told you. I should have called the police. I should never have gone in there.”
“You’re right.”
The answer seemed to surprise her. She had come prepared to argue, maybe to plead. I wasn’t going to make the truth easier for her just because she looked ashamed.
“Why did you help him with the insurance forms?” I asked.
Vanessa’s cheeks colored. “He told me he was drowning. He said there were debts he couldn’t get ahead of and he needed to reset the finances before they swallowed the house. He asked me to help organize paperwork and make calls.”
“You knew he was changing things.”
“I knew he was dealing with money. He said you’d agreed to review everything.” She swallowed. “He told me you understood.”
“I signed where he pointed.”
“I know.” Her eyes shone, but she didn’t cry. “I believed him when he said it was a financial reset. I didn’t know he was planning anything that could hurt you or Ruby.”
I studied her face, searching for the practiced look of a lie. I found fear. I also found a woman who had chosen her brother’s version of events because it was easier than asking what he meant.
“That doesn’t make what you did harmless.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted the phone?”
“No. He said it had private information and that you’d misunderstand if you found it.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It was.” She rubbed her thumb over the phone’s scratched casing. “I didn’t want to believe there was anything worse underneath. So I let him keep the explanation small.”
The words hung between us. Outside, a bus hissed along the curb, its windows silvered by the cloudy morning. People crossed the sidewalk with their collars turned up, ordinary and unaware.
I leaned forward. “I’ll give you one chance to tell me the truth. Not the version that makes you feel better. What did Eric ask you to do?”
Vanessa looked toward Price’s booth again.
“Look at me,” I said.
She did.
“He asked me to help with the forms,” she said. “He said he needed a financial reset. He said the house would be empty when you were away. That’s what I knew.”
“You knew we’d be away?”
“I thought you and Ruby might be somewhere else. He told me you’d have plans.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t ask enough questions.”
“And the phone?”
“He said he needed it back before anyone saw what was on it.”
“What’s on it?”
“I don’t know.”
I believed that she didn’t know—or I wanted to. Either way, I couldn’t make belief the same thing as forgiveness.
“Why did you message me instead of Price?”
“Because I thought you’d know it was me. I didn’t know if Eric could see your messages, and I didn’t know who else he’d told.” She glanced toward the window again. “I was scared he’d find me first.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Her answer came too quickly. I watched her shoulders rise, then settle.
“Vanessa.”
“I haven’t seen him,” she said. “I swear.”
A burst of laughter rose from a table behind us. It sounded wrong in the tight space between us.
Vanessa pushed the phone closer. “Take it. Please.”
I looked down at it but left it where it was. “Price should handle it.”
“He needs to know Eric is looking for it.”
“He already knows.”
“Then he needs to know Eric may be close.”
Something in her tone made the skin between my shoulders prickle. I turned toward the window.
At first I saw only the reflection of the café: my own pale face, Vanessa’s dark coat, the bright squares of the ceiling lights. Then a man on the far sidewalk stepped away from the bus shelter and looked in.
Vanessa went still.
“Who is that?” I asked.
Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.
The man crossed toward a dark SUV parked along the curb. He moved fast, head down, one hand already on the door handle.
“Vanessa.”
“It’s Cal.”
The contractor. The man Price had connected to the SUV that entered our home.
Price was out of his booth before I could turn back. He crossed the café, not running, but moving with sudden purpose.
Outside, Cal yanked open the SUV door and climbed inside. The engine started. Tires splashed through a shallow ribbon of rainwater as the vehicle pulled away.
Price pushed through the café door, but the SUV had already reached the intersection.
Vanessa gripped the table. “He was watching us.”
I looked at the phone between us. “How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said you hadn’t seen Eric.”
“I haven’t.” Her voice trembled. “I didn’t know Cal was here.”
Price came back in, breathing harder, his eyes moving from Vanessa to the phone.
“Did he see you?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Vanessa said.
The phone lit up on the table.
May you like
A name appeared across the screen: HOME.
An incoming call.
