Chapter 5 - THE WRONG WOMAN IN THE CAR
For several seconds Dominic said nothing.
Rachel Bellini.
A cousin he had not seen since his twenties.
A woman who had vanished after a family argument seventeen years earlier.
A woman police had apparently mistaken for Elena.
Dominic looked at Mercer.
“How do you know?”
Mercer rubbed a hand across his face.
“Because Rachel had a purple silk scarf she wore constantly.”
“That is not evidence.”
“No.”
Mercer’s eyes filled with shame.
“But I also repaired three of Rachel’s molars after a horse accident when she was nineteen.”
Dominic stared.
“The dental work.”
Mercer nodded.
“Distinctive enough that I should have recognized it.”
“Should have?”
“I never saw the forensic report.”
“Why?”
“Because I never asked.”
Dominic laughed once.
“You were told Elena was dead, and you never asked to see how they identified her?”
Mercer looked at him.
“I believed the same thing you did.”
“That powerful families can make inconvenient questions disappear?”
Mercer’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
Emma watched Dominic absorb that.
His own reputation had helped bury the truth.
People around him had been afraid to investigate too closely because they assumed he already knew.
Power had protected him.
And blinded him.
Sophie had stopped coloring.
She stared at the bracelet in Dominic’s hand.
“Can I wear it?”
Dominic looked down.
The silver stars.
Her mother had apparently hidden it inside the red coat.
He walked over.
“Do you want to?”
Sophie nodded.
Dominic fastened it around her wrist.
It hung slightly loose.
Sophie smiled.
The first real smile Emma had seen from her.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Aunt Nessa said Mommy lost it.”
Vanessa covered her mouth.
“I thought she had.”
Dominic looked at his sister.
“Did Elena leave anything else?”
Vanessa shook her head.
Then stopped.
Emma saw it.
A memory.
“What?”
Vanessa whispered, “Her watch.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“Elena’s Cartier.”
“She wasn’t wearing it in the car.”
“How do you know?”
“The police inventory.”
Dominic took one step toward her.
“You saw the inventory?”
“Yes.”
“You just let Mercer tell me nobody examined the records.”
“I examined some.”
“Why?”
Vanessa’s voice broke.
“Because I didn’t believe it at first.”
There it was.
Another lie under the lie.
Dominic stared.
“For how long?”
“A week.”
“You suspected Elena wasn’t dead for a week?”
“I suspected something was wrong.”
“And then?”
“Michael came to me.”
Sophie’s shoulders tightened.
Emma moved closer.
Dominic noticed and lowered his voice.
“What did Michael say?”
“He said Elena had died because she tried to expose him.”
Dominic’s face became dangerous.
“And you believed him?”
“He had her watch.”
Silence.
“He showed me.”
Emma felt cold.
Vanessa continued.
“He said Elena had given it to him before the crash.”
“Why would she do that?”
“He claimed she wanted him to sell it and leave.”
Dominic looked disgusted.
“And that sounded believable?”
“No.”
Vanessa wiped her cheeks.
“But then he showed me something else.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
Dominic waited.
Vanessa hesitated.
“A photograph of Elena kissing him.”
That changed everything.
Dominic stood perfectly still.
Emma wished Vanessa had slapped him instead.
It would have hurt less.
“When?”
“The date printed on it was three months before the accident.”
Dominic’s voice became quiet.
“You thought my wife was having an affair with Michael.”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“You knew enough to hide it.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Stop saying that.”
Vanessa flinched.
Dominic pointed toward Sophie.
“You drugged my daughter because you were protecting me.”
“No.”
“You buried evidence because you were protecting me.”
“I was protecting Sophie too.”
“From what?”
“From you finding Michael.”
The answer landed like a gunshot.
Dominic stared.
Vanessa’s voice shook.
“You would have gone after him. You would have torn the city apart. People would have died.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know who you were eighteen months ago.”
Dominic said nothing.
Emma watched a painful truth pass between them.
Vanessa was not entirely wrong.
Dominic knew it.
That was the first reversal Emma hadn’t expected.
Vanessa’s choices were terrible.
But some of her fear had been real.
Dominic walked to the window.
“When did Sophie start remembering?”
“About four months ago.”
“What did she say?”
“The bridge. Michael. Her mother.”
“And the medicine?”
“She stopped sleeping. She would wake up screaming. Mercer prescribed it after I described the episodes.”
Mercer cut in.
“I believed Vanessa had your permission.”
Dominic turned.
“You never verified?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Mercer answered quietly.
“Because Vanessa has handled medical decisions in this family for years.”
Dominic looked toward Sophie.
He understood the accusation inside that.
He had been absent.
Not physically.
But enough.
Running businesses.
Settling disputes.
Delegating his daughter’s daily life.
Trusting Vanessa because Vanessa was family.
Eight nannies had failed.
Except perhaps they hadn’t.
Emma spoke.
“Why did the nannies leave?”
Vanessa stared at her.
Emma didn’t retreat.
“You wanted them gone too?”
“No.”
“Then why did all of them quit?”
Vanessa looked genuinely confused.
“I thought Sophie drove them away.”
Emma shook her head.
“Sophie’s worst episodes happened after your visits.”
Vanessa’s shame returned.
“I know that now.”
“No.”
Emma’s voice stayed calm.
“You knew enough to give her medicine.”
Dominic watched both women.
Vanessa whispered, “She would talk about Michael. I panicked.”
Emma looked at Sophie.
“And when she panicked, everyone blamed her.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Dominic absorbed that.
Then he turned to Sophie.
“Baby.”
She looked up.
“Did any of the nannies hurt you?”
Sophie shook her head.
“Did Aunt Vanessa tell them to leave?”
Another shake.
Dominic frowned.
“Then why did they leave?”
Sophie pointed at the stuffed rabbit.
Emma felt the answer before she understood it.
“The recorder?”
Sophie nodded.
“Rabbit talked.”
Dominic stared.
“At night?”
“Yes.”
“What did it say?”
Sophie’s face changed.
Fear.
Emma crouched beside her.
“You don’t have to say.”
But Sophie whispered, “Bad Daddy.”
Dominic’s expression cracked.
“What?”
“Rabbit said Daddy makes people disappear.”
Vanessa went pale.
“I never recorded that.”
Dominic picked up the recorder.
He scrolled through the files.
Some had timestamps.
Others did not.
He selected one from three months earlier.
Static.
Then a male voice.
Distorted.
Whispering.
“Sophie, if you tell your father about the bridge, Emma will disappear next.”
Emma stopped breathing.
Vanessa stared at her.
“That was recorded before Emma worked here.”
Dominic looked at the timestamp.
Vanessa was right.
The file was older than Emma’s employment.
Yet the voice had used Emma’s name.
Dominic replayed it.
Same sentence.
Same threat.
Mercer whispered, “How is that possible?”
Emma looked toward the rabbit.
Then toward the recorder.
A thought came.
“The timestamp could be wrong.”
Dominic examined the settings.
“No.”
He looked at Emma.
“These files were transferred onto the recorder.”
Not recorded directly.
Someone had placed them there.
Somebody had built a collection of threats and old recordings to control Sophie.
Vanessa wasn’t the only person using the rabbit.
Dominic’s thumb moved.
He found the earliest file.
Eighteen months old.
He pressed PLAY.
Rain.
A car door.
Elena’s voice.
Then Michael.
Real this time.
“You bring me the account book, Elena, and I walk away.”
Elena answered.
“You don’t want money.”
Michael laughed.
“No.”
“What do you want?”
A pause.
Then Michael said:
“What our father promised me.”
Dominic frowned.
Vanessa whispered, “What did Dad promise him?”
The recorder crackled.
May you like
Michael answered Elena’s question.
“Dominic’s daughter.”
