Chapter 3 - the wife who died before vanessa moved in)
Rachel had not heard Emily's name spoken inside the family for nearly a year.
Not because anyone had forgotten her.
Because remembering her hurt.
Emily Carter had been twenty nine when she died.
Officially, the cause was a sudden cardiac arrhythmia complicated by an undiagnosed heart condition.
Rachel remembered the phone call.
She remembered Daniel making sounds she had never heard a human being make.
She remembered Margaret washing dishes at two in the morning because if she stopped moving, she would collapse.
She remembered the funeral.
Vanessa had stood beside Daniel for almost the entire service.
At the time it had seemed compassionate.
Vanessa and Emily had been college friends.
Vanessa had helped organize meals, sort condolence cards, answer the door, and eventually clean out Emily's closet when Daniel could not bear to do it himself.
Eight months after Emily died, Vanessa moved into the guest room temporarily because Daniel was struggling.
Four months later, they started dating.
A year after Emily's death, they were engaged.
Rachel had hated it.
She had never said she thought Vanessa caused Emily's death.
Nothing that dramatic.
She simply felt the relationship moved too quickly.
Daniel called her cruel.
Vanessa cried.
Margaret begged everyone to stop fighting.
Rachel apologized.
Now the unknown text stared at her.
ASK YOUR BROTHER WHAT HAPPENED TO EMILY CARTER.
Daniel had heard Officer Hale mention the hidden phone, but he had not seen the text.
Rachel muted the call.
She showed Hale.
He read it twice.
"Don't reply yet."
"Why?"
"We need to trace it."
Rachel nodded.
Margaret leaned closer.
"What does it say?"
Rachel hesitated.
Her mother saw her face.
"What?"
Rachel handed her the phone.
Margaret read.
Her skin drained of color.
"No."
Rachel whispered.
"We don't know what it means."
Margaret looked at Daniel's name on the call.
Then at Hale.
"Emily died in her sleep."
Hale asked quietly.
"Was an autopsy performed?"
Rachel answered.
"Yes."
"Any toxicology?"
"I assume so."
"You assume?"
"We were told natural causes."
Hale made a note.
Margaret shook her head.
"Daniel would never hurt Emily."
Rachel looked at her.
The text had said not to trust Daniel.
But it had not said Daniel killed Emily.
Those were different things.
Rachel unmuted the call.
"Daniel."
"What's going on?"
She took a breath.
"I received another message."
"From who?"
"Unknown number."
"What does it say?"
She looked at Hale.
He gave a small nod.
Rachel said.
"It says to ask you what happened to Emily."
Nothing.
Not static.
Not breath.
Nothing.
Rachel felt fear spread slowly through her chest.
"Daniel?"
He finally spoke.
"Who sent that?"
"I told you. Unknown number."
"Exactly what did it say?"
Rachel repeated it.
Daniel whispered a curse.
Margaret leaned toward the phone.
"What aren't you telling us?"
"Nothing."
"Daniel."
"Mom, I don't know what this is."
"You sounded scared."
"I am scared. Someone is using my dead wife's name while my son is in a hospital and police are tearing apart my house."
Rachel said carefully.
"Was there anything unusual about Emily's death?"
"No."
"Anything you didn't tell us?"
"No."
"Did Vanessa know something?"
"Rachel."
"What?"
"Stop."
"Why?"
"Because Emily is dead."
"That's exactly why I won't."
Daniel's voice cracked.
"She died beside me."
Rachel closed her eyes.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
His tone changed.
Not anger.
Pain.
"I woke up and she was cold."
Margaret covered her mouth.
Daniel continued.
"I called 911. I did CPR until the paramedics pulled me away. I spent a year thinking there must have been something I missed. Some symptom. Something she said. Some reason I should have known."
Rachel's anger softened but did not disappear.
"Then why did you react like you knew something when I mentioned her?"
Daniel did not answer.
"Daniel."
He exhaled.
"Because Vanessa told me once that Emily had been afraid of someone before she died."
Rachel stared at the wall.
"When?"
"About six months after Emily died."
"And you never told us?"
"Vanessa said Emily was paranoid."
"About who?"
"She wouldn't say."
"Why?"
"She said she promised Emily."
Rachel felt something close to rage.
"And you married her anyway?"
Daniel raised his voice.
"I thought she was protecting Emily's privacy."
Margaret whispered.
"Or her own."
Daniel said nothing.
Officer Hale stepped forward.
"Ask whether Vanessa had access to Emily's medication."
Rachel did.
Daniel's answer was immediate.
"Yes."
Rachel's stomach dropped.
"Why?"
"Emily had migraines. Vanessa sometimes picked up prescriptions for her."
Hale wrote faster.
"What medication?"
"I don't remember."
"Think."
"Something for pain. Something for nausea. Maybe a muscle relaxer."
Rachel asked.
"Did Emily have a heart condition?"
"No."
"But the autopsy found one?"
"That's what they said."
Officer Hale raised his eyebrows.
Daniel added.
"It was an electrical abnormality. They said it could be intermittent."
Rachel turned away from the bassinet.
"Daniel, I'm going to ask you something difficult."
"What?"
"Did you ever suspect Vanessa had anything to do with Emily's death?"
"No."
Too fast.
Rachel's eyes narrowed.
"That was too quick."
"Because the answer is no."
"Did the thought ever cross your mind?"
Silence.
Then Daniel said.
"Once."
Margaret sank into a chair.
Rachel asked.
"Why?"
"Because three months after Vanessa moved in, I found one of Emily's old prescription bottles in Vanessa's bathroom drawer."
Officer Hale's head snapped up.
Rachel felt cold from scalp to fingertips.
"What medication?"
"I don't remember."
"Daniel."
"It had Emily's name."
"What did Vanessa say?"
"That she found it in a box of Emily's things and put it aside to dispose of."
"And you believed her?"
"Yes."
Rachel closed her eyes.
"Where is that bottle now?"
"I don't know."
Hale gestured for Daniel to continue.
Rachel asked.
"Anything else?"
"No."
"You're sure?"
Another pause.
Daniel said.
"There was an email."
Margaret's hand tightened around the chair arm.
"What email?" Rachel asked.
"Emily sent it to herself."
"When?"
"The night before she died."
Rachel's heartbeat became audible in her ears.
"What did it say?"
"I don't know."
"You opened it."
"No. Vanessa found it when she was helping me close Emily's accounts."
"How did you know it existed?"
"She told me."
"And?"
"She said it was blank."
Rachel looked at Officer Hale.
He frowned.
"A blank email?"
"That's what Vanessa said."
"Did she delete it?"
"I think so."
Rachel closed her eyes again.
Every answer opened another door.
Behind each door was Vanessa.
Officer Hale's radio crackled.
He stepped away.
Rachel heard.
Phone extraction.
Unregistered device.
Video files.
Then Hale looked back.
"We have movement."
Rachel stood.
"What?"
"The hidden phone in the freezer contains videos."
"What kind?"
"We don't have full review yet."
"Of Daniel sleeping?"
"Some."
Daniel cursed through the phone.
Hale continued.
"Some appear to show Vanessa entering your bedroom at night."
Daniel went silent.
"Doing what?"
Hale looked uncomfortable.
"We'll need forensic review."
Rachel pressed.
"Doing what?"
Hale answered.
"Putting something into a glass of water beside your bed."
Margaret gasped.
Daniel did not speak.
Hale continued.
"There are several clips."
Rachel looked toward the sleeping newborn.
"Who recorded them?"
"We don't know."
"Where was the phone placed?"
"Different locations."
"Meaning?"
"Someone moved it."
Rachel turned back to her phone.
"Daniel, did you ever wake up feeling unusually sick?"
"Sometimes."
"How often?"
"Rachel."
"Answer me."
"Once or twice a month."
"When did it start?"
Daniel whispered.
"After Vanessa moved in."
Nobody said anything.
Then the phone on Rachel's hand buzzed.
The unknown number again.
This time the message contained a video.
Officer Hale immediately said.
"Don't play it."
Rachel stared at the thumbnail.
It showed Emily.
Alive.
Sitting at Daniel's old kitchen table.
The timestamp in the corner was dated twelve hours before her death.
Emily was looking directly at the camera.
Her face was pale.
Her eyes were frightened.
The video was only fourteen seconds long.
Rachel looked at Hale.
He looked at the screen.
Then he nodded once.
"Play it on speaker."
Rachel tapped.
Emily's voice filled the hospital room.
"If I don't make it through tonight, it wasn't my heart."
Margaret cried out softly.
Daniel made a broken sound on the call.
Emily continued.
"Vanessa keeps changing my pills. Daniel doesn't believe me. I hid copies of everything. Rachel will know where."
The video ended.
Rachel stared at the frozen image of Emily's face.
Daniel whispered.
"No."
Margaret began to cry.
Rachel could not move.
Emily had named Vanessa.
Emily had said Daniel did not believe her.
And Emily had said Rachel would know where.
Rachel had no idea what that meant.
Until she remembered a conversation from four years earlier.
Emily had once laughed over coffee and told Rachel that if she ever needed to hide something from Daniel, she would put it in the one place Daniel had refused to touch since childhood.
Their father's old red toolbox.
The toolbox had been sitting untouched for fourteen years.
Inside Margaret's basement.
Rachel turned to her mother.
"Do you still have Dad's toolbox?"
Margaret looked at her through tears.
"In the basement."
Officer Hale stepped closer.
"Why?"
May you like
Rachel looked at Emily's frozen face on her phone.
"Because I think a dead woman just told us where she buried the truth."
