Chapter 5
Detective Brooks refused to let me go alone.
I intended to anyway.
“You don’t understand,” I told her.
“I understand perfectly. That’s why you’re not controlling this operation.”
“She has Rosie.”
“Yes.”
“If Vivienne thinks police are nearby—”
“She already assumes police are nearby.”
Brooks stepped closer.
“Damian, kidnappers control victims by making families believe obedience guarantees safety. It doesn’t.”
I knew she was right.
But logic was useless when I kept hearing Rosie say, Come get me.
Vivienne called at 2:17 p.m.
She gave me an address.
An abandoned marina warehouse near Glen Cove.
“Twenty minutes,” she said.
“That’s impossible.”
“Then drive fast.”
“I want proof Rosie is alive.”
There was movement.
Then Rosie whispered.
“Mr. Damian?”
“I’m coming.”
“I’m cold.”
Something broke inside me.
Vivienne returned.
“Twenty minutes.”
I grabbed the flash drive.
Brooks had already replaced it with a tracker-equipped duplicate.
The original remained sealed as evidence.
I drove.
Alone, visibly.
Police followed far enough back that I couldn’t see them.
At the marina, the rain had become icy.
The warehouse stood beside black water.
I walked inside holding the drive.
“Vivienne!”
My voice echoed.
Nothing.
Then Leonard Price stepped from behind an old boat.
He looked nothing like the polished attorney who had attended my dinners.
His coat was dirty.
His eyes were wild.
“Put it down.”
“Where is Rosie?”
“Drive first.”
“No.”
He raised a gun.
I stopped breathing.
“Put it down.”
I placed the flash drive on the concrete.
He approached cautiously.
“You helped her kidnap a child.”
“You have no idea what she’s done.”
“Then tell me.”
He laughed bitterly.
“You think Vivienne works for me?”
“I think both of you are finished.”
“No.”
His hand shook.
“She’s finishing me too.”
That surprised me.
“Where is Rosie?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I brought the van. That’s all.”
“You took her.”
“I gave her to Vivienne near the harbor.”
Rage surged through me.
“You drugged a three-year-old.”
His face tightened.
“She said it was harmless.”
I moved toward him.
He raised the gun.
“Stay back.”
I forced myself to stop.
“Why does she want the drive?”
“She thinks there’s a ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“The real accounts.”
He swallowed.
“Everything she moved. Everyone she paid. Everything since Claire.”
My blood turned to ice.
“My first fiancée?”
Leonard looked confused.
“You really don’t know.”
“Know what?”
He glanced behind me nervously.
“Claire didn’t die because she lost control of her car.”
I felt the floor shift.
“What did you say?”
“Vivienne knew Claire.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“They never met.”
“That’s what Vivienne told you.”
My mind raced.
Claire Morgan had been twenty-nine when she died.
We had been engaged for four months.
Her car went through a guardrail in Connecticut.
Police blamed wet roads.
Leonard continued.
“Vivienne was using another name then.”
“What name?”
Before he answered, a shot exploded.
Leonard jerked.
He dropped the gun and collapsed.
I threw myself behind an overturned table.
Another shot hit metal.
Police swarmed the building.
Someone shouted.
Footsteps ran outside.
I crawled toward Leonard.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
He was alive.
“Who shot you?”
His eyes rolled toward the rear door.
“Vivienne.”
Detective Brooks entered with officers.
They secured Leonard.
Vivienne had escaped by boat.
Again.
But Leonard had given us something.
A name.
Before paramedics took him away, he whispered it.
“Victoria Lane.”
Police searched the name.
Within an hour, they found an old record.
Victoria Lane had worked for a consulting firm eight years earlier.
Claire Morgan had hired that firm to investigate financial irregularities inside my father’s company.
A photograph from an employee directory appeared on the screen.
The hair was darker.
The face slightly younger.
But it was Vivienne.
I stared at it.
“She knew Claire.”
Detective Brooks nodded.
“Apparently.”
“Why?”
“We’re finding out.”
Marco entered.
His face was grim.
“Toxicology came back.”
I stood.
“Sofia?”
He nodded.
“Her blood contained extremely high levels of warfarin.”
The same anticoagulant named in Vivienne’s clinic records.
“Could it cause the brain bleed?”
“Yes.”
My hands curled into fists.
“And the pills?”
“Several capsules from Sofia’s prescription bottle had been tampered with.”
I closed my eyes.
Murder.
The word finally became unavoidable.
Sofia had not simply died.
Someone had taken her away from Rosie.
Detective Brooks’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then turned to me.
“We found Vivienne’s boat.”
“Where?”
“Docked at a private residence across the sound.”
“Rosie?”
“No sign yet.”
I was already moving.
Brooks stopped me.
“The property belongs to someone you know.”
“Who?”
She looked almost reluctant.
“Your uncle.”
My uncle Sebastian had been my father’s younger brother.
He had lived overseas for years, returning only occasionally for family events.
He had attended my engagement dinner.
He had laughed when Rosie pointed at the ring.
I remembered it clearly now.
Not an amused laugh.
A nervous one.
“Sebastian?”
Marco cursed under his breath.
Brooks nodded.
“We’re obtaining the warrant.”
I stared through the window at the gray water.
Suddenly, an old memory returned.
My father in the hospital before his death.
Sebastian standing outside the room.
Claire arguing with him in the hallway.
At the time, Claire told me it was about business.
I never asked further.
I trusted my family.
Just as I had trusted Vivienne.
My phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived.
Rosie sat on a couch beside a fireplace.
She was wrapped in a blanket.
Alive.
Behind her stood a man.
My uncle Sebastian.
Below the image was a message.
Come without police if you want the child.
Then another.
May you like
Your father made the same mistake you did.
He trusted the wrong person.
