Chapter 3 - THE TORN DRAWING
Why was Vanessa planting my mother’s missing rosary on a housekeeper?
I backed the footage up. I watched Vanessa berate Carol, shove the heirloom into her pocket, and then point directly at the security camera in the corner. Vanessa was establishing a narrative. She was creating evidence of a theft.
I slammed my fist on the desk. I had invited a monster into my home.
I left the security room and sprinted to my private study. When I unlocked the heavy oak doors, Carol flinched, pulling Ivy close to her chest.
“I didn’t steal it,” Carol blurted out instantly, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I swear to you, Mr. Sterling. She told me if I didn’t do exactly what she said, she would hand the security tapes to the police. She said my daughter would go to foster care.”
I sat heavily in the armchair opposite them. “Carol, I just watched the tape. I saw her put the rosary in your pocket.”
Carol blinked, the tension draining out of her shoulders in a massive, shuddering sigh. “You... you believe me?”
“I believe you,” I said. “But I don't understand why. Why is she targeting you?”
“Because I clean her private suite,” Carol said quietly. “And I found something. I didn’t mean to look, but it was sitting right on her vanity.”
Before Carol could explain, little Ivy wiggled out of her mother’s arms. She trotted over to my desk, holding a crumpled piece of crayon paper she had brought from the kitchen.
“I draw the bad lady’s secret,” Ivy said, handing it to me.
I took the paper. It was a child’s crude drawing, but the details were startling. It showed a woman with yellow hair—Vanessa—holding a black box. Around the box were little green rectangles with dollar signs.
“Ivy saw her with it yesterday,” Carol whispered. “She keeps a lockbox under the floorboards in her closet. That’s what I saw her hiding.”
I didn't waste another second. I left Marcus at the study door and marched upstairs to Vanessa’s suite. The wedding guests were murmuring loudly in the foyer below, wondering where the groom had gone.
I threw open the closet doors and pulled up the heavy Persian rug. There, barely visible, was a seam in the hardwood. I pried it open with a letter opener.
Inside was a heavy black steel lockbox. I smashed the cheap lock with a brass bookend.
Inside weren't just stacks of cash.
There were passports. Three of them. All with Vanessa’s face. None of them with the name Vanessa Hale.
May you like
Then, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Vanessa.
Come to the greenhouse, Nathaniel. Alone. Or I make the call, and the police take Carol away forever.
