Chapter 3 - The Man Who Buried My Wife
I didn't answer.
Martin called again.
Then a text appeared.
HEARD YOU CAME HOME EARLY. CALL ME BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING STUPID.
There was no possible reason he should have known I was home.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I should have told you sooner."
"You sent the pictures."
"I should have stopped it."
"Did you know Claire was alive?"
Her face answered before her mouth did.
Sophie watched us.
I sent her upstairs with the security supervisor, then faced Mrs. Alvarez.
"Tell me everything."
She sat at the kitchen table. "Mrs. Cole came here four months ago. At night. She looked sick. Thin. There was a scar on the side of her head. She begged me not to call you."
"Why?"
"She believed you had signed papers against her."
"What papers?"
"I don't know. She only said somebody had shown her proof that you wanted her gone."
"And you let her see Sophie without telling me?"
Mrs. Alvarez's eyes filled. "She was Sophie's mother."
"She let Sophie think she was dead!"
"She was afraid."
"So was my daughter."
Mrs. Alvarez looked down.
A car horn sounded outside.
Security called from the gate. Martin Vale was there, demanding entry.
I told them no.
"You found her?" I asked.
"I found where she was staying. She's gone now."
"Gone where?"
"I don't know. Her apartment was cleared out this morning."
He opened the envelope.
Then Lucas showed me a second photograph.
Claire was sitting in a parked car with Martin Vale.
The timestamp was three weeks ago.
"She told me not to trust him."
Lucas nodded. "Maybe she found out too late."
He slid one last document across the table.
It was a copy of Claire's death petition.
The application had been filed less than six weeks after her car went over the cliff.
The petitioner wasn't me.
It was Martin.
Attached was a sworn statement saying Claire had been suicidal, unstable, and afraid she might hurt Sophie.
The witness who signed it was Vanessa Hale.
"Vanessa told me she never met Claire."
Lucas looked at me.
"She lied."
Then his phone buzzed.
He checked the screen and went still.
"What?"
"Your ex-fiancée just left the guesthouse."
"Security was watching her."
"Not through the front gate."
He turned the phone toward me.
May you like
The exterior camera showed Vanessa running down the beach path.
She was carrying Sophie.
