Chapter 3 - The Night Visits
Richard stared at the frozen image.
“Why were you in his room at two in the morning?”
Vanessa laughed too quickly. “Because I love my nephew?”
Anna shook her head. “You never go into the nursery at night.”
“Were you awake every night?”
“No. The motion log was.”
Vanessa’s smile vanished.
Owen opened the footage. It showed Vanessa entering Leo’s room with a small envelope in her hand. She stayed for four minutes, then left without checking the crib.
“What was in the envelope?” Richard asked.
“I don’t remember.”
“You were carrying it into my son’s room in the middle of the night.”
“Maybe photos. Maybe paperwork. I don’t know.”
Anna remembered something.
“The blue folder.”
Richard turned. “What?”
“Leo’s trust documents. Your attorney brought copies the week before that recording. I put them in the locked cabinet in the nursery office because you told me to keep all of his records together.”
Richard moved before anyone else did.
They found the cabinet unlocked.
Inside were pediatric records, passports, insurance papers—and an empty slot where the blue trust folder had been.
Richard’s voice went flat. “Where is it?”
Vanessa stepped backward. “How would I know?”
“You were in this room after two in the morning.”
“You can’t prove I took anything.”
Richard faced Owen. “Lock her access to the property systems. Now.”
Vanessa stared at him. “You’re locking me out of our family home?”
“My home.”
Her expression hardened.
There it was, Anna thought. The real Vanessa. Not polished. Not wounded. Furious.
“You always were ungrateful,” Vanessa said.
Richard almost laughed. “For what?”
“For everything I cleaned up after Claire died.”
The name changed the room.
Claire Blackwood. Richard’s late wife. Leo’s mother.
Anna had never met her, but her photographs were everywhere: laughing on the beach, holding newborn Leo, standing beside Richard at a charity gala.
Richard’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t bring Claire into this.”
“I kept this family functioning when you could barely get out of bed.”
“And I thanked you.”
“No. You replaced me.” Vanessa looked at Anna.
Anna’s stomach tightened.
Richard said, “This is not about Anna.”
Vanessa smiled without warmth. “You have no idea what this is about.”
Then she walked out.
Owen waited until her footsteps disappeared.
“She’s right about one thing,” he said.
Richard looked at him.
Owen pointed to the trust cabinet.
“The lock wasn’t forced. Whoever opened it used the master key.”
Only three people had one.
Richard.
Owen.
And the family attorney, Graham Voss.
Richard immediately called Graham.
No answer.
He tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
Then Anna noticed Leo crouched near the rocking chair.
He was holding something blue.
A torn corner of paper.
Anna knelt. “Where did you get that, sweetheart?”
Leo pointed under the chair.
Anna reached beneath it and pulled out a single page.
At the top were the words BLACKWOOD CHILDREN’S TRUST.
At the bottom was a signature.
May you like
Claire Blackwood.
But Richard looked at it once and whispered, “That’s not Claire’s signature.”
