Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO ANSWERED MY DAUGHTER'S CALL
“Your sister knew Grace needed someone, and she told the dispatcher not to contact you?”
Alexander's silence told me how badly that question hurt.
“Yes,” he finally answered.
I stood at my hotel window, watching headlights move through the Chicago rain.
“Why would she do that?”
“She says she was trying to help.”
“Then why didn't she tell us?”
“I asked her the same thing.”
“And?”
“She started crying.”
I closed my eyes.
I'd seen Madison cry before.
She cried when Alexander refused to buy her a vacation home in Aspen.
She cried when Evelyn criticized her clothes.
She even cried once because I wouldn't surrender my anniversary reservation so Olivia could use the restaurant.
Madison's tears had never told me much about her conscience.
“What did she actually say?” I asked.
“That she arranged transportation and thought a driver had handled everything.”
“Then I want the driver's name.”
“So do I.”
“Alexander, don't protect her because she's your sister.”
His voice broke.
“I've already lost my daughter because I put the wrong people first. I'm not doing that again.”
I wanted to believe him.
But believing Alexander had once cost me almost everything.
The following morning, Detective Ruiz interviewed Madison.
Rebecca attended on my behalf and later explained what had happened.
Madison admitted authorizing a vehicle to travel toward Cedar Grove Academy.
She claimed she had been supervising Olivia's party when the SUV left.
She also insisted she had no idea Grace had wandered away from school.
According to Madison, the driver never reported any collision to her.
“Did she identify the driver?” I asked.
“Not directly.”
“Why not?”
“She says transportation employees regularly used shared credentials.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Rebecca looked serious.
“It may be. But we need evidence, not assumptions.”
I hated how often she was right.
That afternoon, I received an unexpected message from Judith in Toronto.
Your position is safe. Take the leave you need. Natalie says she'll cover tomorrow's presentation.
Natalie Brooks worked in our department.
She was thirty-nine, recently divorced, and raising a six-year-old daughter named Ruby.
On my first week, she'd brought Ruby to the office after a childcare cancellation.
Ruby had stood beside my desk holding a stuffed penguin.
“Are you the new lady?” she'd asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you like cookies?”
“Very much.”
She'd nodded with the seriousness only small children can manage.
“Okay. We can be friends.”
At the time, the conversation had nearly broken me.
Now I found myself remembering her trusting little face.
Somewhere in Toronto, Ruby would be waiting for her mother after school.
I hoped nobody ever made her wonder if she'd been forgotten.
That evening, Olivia finally agreed to speak with Detective Ruiz.
She requested that I be present.
I almost refused.
Then Rebecca said, “You deserve to hear what she's willing to say.”
We met in a conference room at the police station.
Olivia looked different without diamonds.
Her blonde hair was tied back, and she wore a simple navy sweater.
For once, she didn't look like a woman competing for my husband's attention.
She looked frightened.
“I never meant for Grace to get hurt,” she began.
I didn't respond.
Olivia twisted her hands.
“The school called me that afternoon. They said Alexander hadn't collected her.”
“Why didn't you tell him?”
“Because he was in the middle of my birthday celebration.”
I stared at her.
“He could have left.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Her eyes filled.
She looked toward Detective Ruiz.
“I thought the child was safe inside the school.”
“So you asked Madison to arrange a car?” Elena asked.
“Yes.”
“Why Madison?”
“She handled the party transportation. I trusted her.”
“Did you follow up?”
Olivia shook her head.
“Not immediately.”
I could feel my pulse in my throat.
“Did you think about Grace at all afterward?”
Olivia swallowed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Around five-thirty. I asked Madison whether the transportation problem had been handled.”
“And what did she say?”
Olivia looked down.
“She told me everything was under control.”
I leaned forward.
“Then you went back to celebrating?”
Tears slid down her cheeks.
“Yes.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then I asked the question I'd been carrying since the funeral.
“Why did you want my husband so badly?”
Olivia looked startled.
“Emily—”
“You wore my necklace. You attended dinners I wasn't allowed to attend. You let his sister tell the world you belonged together.”
Her expression crumpled.
“Alexander and I were together for years before he met you.”
“I know.”
“I thought we'd marry.”
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
She looked at her hands.
“When he chose you, I kept telling myself it was temporary. Then you had Grace, and I realized it wasn't.”
I stared at her.
“You were jealous of a little girl?”
“Not exactly. I was jealous of the life I thought would be mine.”
There was something painfully ordinary about her answer.
No grand conspiracy.
No extraordinary hatred.
Just a grown woman who hadn't accepted that the past was over.
Olivia wiped her eyes.
“My community center was struggling financially. Alexander had offered to introduce me to donors that evening. I needed the event to go well.”
“So protecting your future mattered more than making sure Grace got home.”
She bowed her head.
“Yes.”
It was the first honest answer she'd given me.
Detective Ruiz asked about vehicle forty-one.
Olivia claimed Madison had arranged the transportation.
She denied knowing who drove.
Then Elena showed her the photograph of the damaged SUV.
Olivia stared at it for a long time.
“You've seen this before,” Elena observed.
Olivia's shoulders stiffened.
“I saw a repair invoice later.”
“When?”
“After the funeral.”
“Who showed it to you?”
Olivia hesitated.
“Evelyn.”
I felt Rebecca shift beside me.
“What did she tell you?” Elena asked.
“That the company was handling an unfortunate transportation issue.”
“Did she say it involved Grace?”
Olivia began crying harder.
“She said the family had suffered enough.”
I watched her carefully.
“You knew there was something wrong, didn't you?”
“I suspected.”
“And you said nothing.”
She covered her face.
“Yes.”
For a moment, I wanted to hate her.
It would have been easier.
Instead, I saw a woman who had made a series of selfish choices and then been too frightened to face what those choices had helped cause.
Her shame didn't make her innocent.
But it reminded me that terrible things weren't always done by people who looked terrible.
Sometimes they were done by people who kept choosing the easiest lie.
Olivia eventually gave Detective Ruiz permission to examine her relevant phone records.
It wasn't enough to undo anything.
But it was more cooperation than she'd offered before.
Outside the police station, Alexander was waiting near the sidewalk.
He didn't approach.
I walked toward him.
“Did you love her?” I asked.
He looked startled.
“Olivia?”
“Yes.”
“Once.”
“And after we married?”
He took a long breath.
“I liked being needed by her.”
I looked away.
“That isn't an answer.”
“Then yes. Part of me liked knowing she still wanted me. I told myself it wasn't an affair because I wasn't sleeping with her.”
The honesty hurt.
He continued.
“I let her take things that belonged in our marriage. My attention. My time. Decisions about our family.”
“And my necklace.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
I studied the man I'd married.
The famous Mafia boss.
The man whose name made strangers nervous.
And beneath everything, a husband who had enjoyed another woman's admiration more than he'd respected his wife's loneliness.
“You didn't lose me when I boarded the plane,” I said.
He nodded.
“I know.”
“You lost me every time you saw what was happening and did nothing.”
His eyes filled.
“I know that too.”
Before I could leave, Detective Ruiz came outside.
She looked troubled.
“We've completed another review of the transportation records.”
Alexander straightened.
“Did you find the driver?”
“Not yet. But we found something important.”
She held up a printout.
It showed communication records from the evening of the accident.
At 5:17 p.m., shortly after the collision, a call had been placed from the phone assigned to vehicle forty-one.
The number dialed belonged to Evelyn Hayes.
The call had lasted three minutes and twelve seconds.
I stared at the paper.
Evelyn had claimed she first learned about the damaged SUV the following morning.
But someone inside that vehicle had called her minutes after Grace was hit.
I looked at Alexander.
His face had gone white.
Detective Ruiz spoke carefully.
“Whatever your mother knew the next morning, someone contacted her from that car on the evening Grace died.”
My voice barely worked.
“Then she lied about when she found out.”
Elena nodded.
“That's what the timeline suggests.”
I thought of Evelyn ordering dinner guests to let me calm down.
Her perfect pearls.
Her polished speeches.
Her insistence that the family name mattered more than scandal.
May you like
And suddenly, I understood something terrifying.
Alexander's mother may have known who struck Grace before I even reached the hospital.
