Chapter 4 - the person in the mirror)
The figure in the reflected image had no recognizable face.
Only a dark shoulder.
Part of an arm.
The pale shape of one hand.
But it was enough to change the investigation.
Victoria was no longer merely a woman accused of harming her own child.
There might have been an accomplice.
Detective Hayes asked Mark for a complete list of anyone who could enter the property without forcing a door.
“Family. Staff. Contractors. Security company. Cleaning service.”
“Anyone with a key?”
“My wife. Elena. Me.”
“Former employees?”
“Possibly.”
Elena thought of Claire.
Hayes noticed.
“You’re thinking about the previous nanny.”
“Yes.”
Mark shook his head.
“Claire wouldn’t hurt Sophie.”
“You don’t know that,” Hayes said.
“No. But Victoria hated Claire near the end.”
Elena turned toward him.
“You told me Claire resigned.”
“She did.”
“Why did Victoria hate her?”
Mark looked embarrassed.
“I didn’t realize she did until after Claire left. Victoria said Claire was asking questions about our finances.”
Hayes leaned forward.
“What kind of questions?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Claire have access to financial documents?”
“No.”
Elena remembered something.
“The office.”
They both looked at her.
“Victoria once caught me cleaning Mark’s office. She became furious.”
Mark frowned.
“She told you not to clean my office?”
“She said no household employee was allowed inside.”
“That was never a rule.”
“I know that now.”
Hayes wrote again.
“What did you see in the office?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“Think.”
Elena replayed the morning.
Dusting the desk.
Straightening a stack of papers.
A blue folder.
A white envelope.
A handwritten number.
“Vail Domestic Holdings.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“It was on a folder.”
“Say that again.”
“Vail Domestic Holdings.”
Mark stood so quickly his chair moved backward.
Hayes watched him.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
Mark’s face had become pale.
“A vendor.”
“For what?”
“It provides residential management services for several properties held by my family trust.”
“What does that mean?”
“Maintenance. Staffing. Repairs.”
Elena saw realization spreading across his face.
“Something’s wrong.”
Mark looked at Hayes.
“I approved payments to Vail for years because Victoria handled most household expenses.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Estimate.”
“Hundreds of thousands.”
Elena stared at him.
Hayes asked, “Who owns Vail Domestic Holdings?”
Mark shook his head.
“I assumed it was part of the property management company.”
“You assumed?”
“Yes.”
Hayes wrote the name down.
“I’ll check.”
Mark looked toward Sophie.
“If this has something to do with money…”
Hayes interrupted.
“Don’t build a theory before we have evidence.”
But Elena could see that Hayes was thinking the same thing.
The following morning Sophie was discharged.
Mark moved her to his parents’ former guesthouse, a smaller but still elegant property fifteen minutes away.
Two private security officers remained outside.
Elena agreed to stay for the first day only.
She told herself Sophie needed a familiar face.
She told herself that was the only reason.
At noon, Mark received a temporary emergency order preventing Victoria from taking Sophie without supervision.
Victoria had not been arrested.
Not yet.
Her attorney claimed the accusation was unsupported and described Elena as an unstable employee trying to destroy a marriage.
The words reached Elena through a police update.
She pretended they did not hurt.
Mark saw through it.
“She’s trying to control the story.”
“She’s good at it.”
“I’m going to stop her.”
“Evidence will stop her.”
Mark nodded.
“Then we find evidence.”
Hayes called that afternoon.
Vail Domestic Holdings existed.
But it did not provide residential management services.
It had no employees.
No public office.
Its registered address belonged to a private mailbox in Delaware.
Over three years, companies controlled by Mark’s family had transferred more than two million dollars to it.
Mark sat at the guesthouse kitchen table, unable to speak.
Elena stood across from him.
“Did Victoria approve the invoices?”
“Yes.”
“Could she own the company?”
“We don’t know.”
His laptop displayed a list of payments.
Some were small.
Some exceeded a hundred thousand dollars.
Mark opened one invoice.
Security renovation.
Another.
Childcare consulting.
Elena pointed.
“That date.”
Mark followed her finger.
The invoice was from eight months earlier.
Before Sophie was born.
The description read:
INFANT RESIDENTIAL SAFETY PREPARATION.
Amount paid:
Eighty four thousand dollars.
“To whom?” Elena asked.
Mark opened the attachment.
The file had no itemized services.
Only a signature.
His signature.
Mark stared.
“I never signed this.”
Elena leaned closer.
The signature looked perfect.
Too perfect.
Mark whispered, “It’s copied from another document.”
A notification appeared on his laptop.
Incoming email.
No sender name.
Subject:
ASK CLAIRE WHY SHE LEFT.
Mark opened it.
There was no message.
Only one attachment.
A photograph.
Claire Benson stood beside the Carter house nearly a year earlier.
Her face was turned toward the camera.
Behind her, Victoria stood in the upstairs window.
Someone had drawn a red circle around Victoria.
May you like
And beside the circle were four words.
SHE WASN’T ALONE THEN EITHER.
