Chapter 2 - SOMEONE WAS STILL INSIDEMarcus called Adrian before the police could.
“We have movement inside the west wing.”
Adrian stood in the hospital hallway.
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
“Every employee was sent home.”
“Yes.”
“And Vanessa is in custody.”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s grip tightened around the phone.
“Where exactly?”
“Second floor. Near Vanessa’s office.”
Adrian looked through the glass wall toward Lily’s hospital room.
She was asleep.
Noah rested in a bassinet beside her.
Two police officers stood outside the door.
“I’m coming back.”
Detective Collins stopped him.
“No, you’re not.”
“Someone is inside my house.”
“And we have officers heading there.”
“That’s my family’s home.”
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t walk into a possible burglary.”
Adrian hated that she was right.
Marcus remained on the line.
“Sir, I’m pulling up the cameras.”
There was a pause.
Then Marcus swore.
“What?”
“Camera twelve just went black.”
Another pause.
“Camera thirteen too.”
Detective Collins immediately stepped closer.
“Put him on speaker.”
Marcus continued.
“Whoever is inside knows where the cameras are.”
Sarah looked at Adrian.
“Does Grant Mercer know the security layout?”
Adrian thought about it.
When Grant had worked for him, he had access to nearly everything related to the estate.
“Yes.”
Sarah called the responding officers.
At the mansion, police entered through the front and rear simultaneously.
The property was enormous.
Twenty-three rooms.
Three staircases.
A private library.
A wine cellar.
Two offices.
Storage rooms built into the oldest part of the structure.
Whoever had entered knew exactly where to go.
By the time police reached Vanessa’s office, the hidden desk compartment had been forced open.
Papers covered the floor.
A laptop was missing.
So was a locked metal box officers had photographed earlier but not yet collected.
The intruder was gone.
But he had made one mistake.
A shoeprint appeared in wet soil beneath a side window.
And one security camera the intruder apparently did not know existed had captured part of his face.
It wasn’t Grant Mercer.
Adrian stared at the image on Marcus’s tablet ninety minutes later.
“Who is that?”
“No idea.”
The man appeared to be in his late forties.
Gray jacket.
Baseball cap.
Heavy build.
A scar crossed his left cheek.
Detective Collins sent the image for identification.
At 3:15 a.m., they got a match.
Thomas Vale.
Private investigator.
Former police officer.
His license had been suspended twice.
Adrian had never heard his name.
Vanessa apparently had.
Phone records showed she had called Vale seventeen times during the previous month.
Detective Collins leaned against the nurses’ station.
“She wasn’t acting alone.”
Adrian looked back at the photograph.
“What was in that metal box?”
“We don’t know.”
That answer was becoming unbearable.
By morning, Adrian’s attorney, Rachel Monroe, arrived.
She walked straight into the hospital room, hugged Lily, checked on Noah, and then turned toward Adrian.
“I want to see every document police recovered.”
“So do I.”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Vanessa called my office last week.”
Adrian stared at her.
“What?”
“She asked questions about your estate.”
“That isn’t unusual.”
“These were.”
Rachel opened her tablet.
“She asked what happened to the children’s trust if you died.”
Adrian’s face hardened.
“She also asked whether a surviving spouse could control the trust if both children were minors.”
“And what did you tell her?”
“That the trust is independently administered.”
Adrian exhaled.
“So she couldn’t take it.”
“No.”
Rachel hesitated.
“Not under the existing structure.”
Existing.
The word bothered him.
“What do you mean?”
“The documents you were supposed to sign today would have changed that.”
Adrian stared at her.
Rachel pulled up the draft Vanessa had sent her office.
At first it looked ordinary.
A restructuring agreement.
Tax language.
Trustee provisions.
But buried on page forty-seven was an amendment.
In the event of Adrian’s death or incapacity, Vanessa would become emergency trust protector.
She could appoint a new trustee.
Grant Mercer.
Adrian stared at the name.
“She put Grant in my children’s trust?”
“Apparently.”
“I fired him.”
“I know.”
“And no one caught this?”
“The document sent to me two weeks ago did not contain this page.”
Adrian looked up.
Rachel’s expression said everything.
“It was inserted later?”
“Yes.”
“Then whoever prepared the final signing copy was helping her.”
For the first time, Adrian understood just how carefully Vanessa had planned.
The doghouse had been horrifying.
But the doghouse was not the plan.
It was what Vanessa did when she believed she was about to win anyway.
By noon, police executed search warrants on Grant Mercer and Thomas Vale.
Grant had disappeared.
Thomas Vale was arrested at a motel twenty miles away.
Inside his car, officers found lock picks, cash and photographs of Adrian’s mansion.
They also found photographs of Lily.
Outside school.
At a playground.
Walking with her nanny.
Adrian nearly lost control when he saw them.
“Why was he following my daughter?”
Detective Collins shook her head.
“He isn’t talking.”
“What about Vanessa?”
“She requested an attorney.”
“Of course she did.”
Adrian returned to Lily’s room.
She was coloring a picture.
A house.
A tree.
A little girl.
A baby.
And a tall man.
There was no woman.
Adrian sat beside her.
“Can I ask you something?”
Lily nodded.
“Did you ever see this man?”
He showed her a photo of Thomas Vale.
The crayon fell from Lily’s hand.
Adrian immediately regretted asking.
“You know him.”
Lily whispered:
“He was the driver.”
“What driver?”
“The man Vanessa said would take me to camp.”
Adrian felt cold.
“What camp?”
“I don’t know.”
“When?”
“Next week.”
Adrian stood so suddenly his chair scraped the floor.
“She told you that?”
Lily nodded.
“She said you already said yes.”
“I never said yes.”
“I know.”
“How?”
Lily looked down.
“Because I heard her say you’d never agree.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“When did you hear that?”
“Two nights ago.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Lily thought carefully.
“She said, ‘Once Lily is gone, Noah is easy.’”
Adrian’s stomach dropped.
Rachel, standing at the doorway, went pale.
Detective Collins was called back immediately.
Lily repeated everything to a child interview specialist.
Adrian watched through one-way glass.
Each sentence made him feel sicker.
Vanessa had told Lily she was being sent away.
Vanessa had threatened to separate her from Noah.
Vanessa had repeatedly told Lily that Adrian wanted “a new family.”
And once, after Lily refused to eat dinner, Vanessa had whispered:
“Your father will believe me before he believes you.”
That sentence destroyed Adrian in a different way.
Because Vanessa had been right.
Several times, Adrian had believed Vanessa.
Not about abuse.
He had never seen any.
But he remembered complaints.
Lily was “acting out.”
Lily was “jealous.”
Lily was “disrespectful.”
Lily had “nightmares for attention.”
Every time Adrian tried to speak with his daughter, Vanessa somehow appeared.
And every time Lily looked frightened, Adrian assumed she was grieving her mother.
Now he understood.
That evening, doctors discharged Noah.
Lily was allowed to leave as well, but Adrian refused to return to the mansion.
They moved temporarily into Rachel’s secure guesthouse outside the city.
Marcus doubled security.
Adrian put Noah to sleep personally.
Then he tucked Lily into bed.
Before he could leave, she grabbed his sleeve.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Is Vanessa coming back?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
Adrian sat on the edge of the bed.
“I promise she will never be alone with you or Noah again.”
Lily studied his face.
Then she asked the question he feared most.
“Do you still love her?”
Adrian did not lie.
“I loved who I thought she was.”
“Is that different?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
He brushed Lily’s hair away from her forehead.
“The person I loved wouldn’t hurt you.”
Lily seemed to understand.
She closed her eyes.
Adrian remained until she fell asleep.
At 10:30 p.m., Rachel found him downstairs.
She carried an old leather folder.
“I found something.”
Adrian looked up.
“What?”
“Vanessa’s prenuptial agreement.”
“That’s not exactly hidden.”
“This part was.”
Rachel opened it.
Attached to the agreement was a handwritten legal memorandum from years earlier.
It explained that if Vanessa were convicted of intentionally harming Adrian or either child, she would lose nearly every financial benefit of the marriage.
Adrian read it twice.
Then Rachel placed another paper beside it.
A bank statement police had recovered from Vanessa’s office.
A transfer.
$250,000.
Recipient:
THOMAS VALE INVESTIGATIONS.
Adrian stared at it.
Rachel whispered:
“She paid a quarter million dollars to the man who was supposed to take Lily somewhere next week.”
Adrian felt something inside him harden.
Then his phone rang.
Detective Collins.
“We opened the flash drive.”
Adrian stood.
“And?”
Sarah was silent for two seconds.
“Mr. Carter, you need to come see this.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Vanessa.”
Adrian waited.
Sarah continued.
“She recorded herself.”
May you like
“Doing what?”
“Planning what would happen after you were gone.”
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