Chapter 4
The officers separated us.
Vanessa performed.
I documented.
That was the difference.
She cried about being a loving stepmother.
I gave them medical photos.
She claimed Sophie had behavioral problems.
I gave them dates, messages, school reports, and the camera footage Aaron had already downloaded.
The footage showed Vanessa slapping herself.
Once.
Hard.
Then knocking over the chair.
Then breaking a glass.
Then looking directly at the camera before realizing the small red light was still on.
One officer stared at the screen.
The other looked at Vanessa.
Her tears dried.
“It’s not what it looks like.”
I almost laughed.
That sentence seemed to be the national anthem of guilty people.
Then the officer played the earlier kitchen footage.
Sophie crying in my arms.
Vanessa calling her a liar.
Vanessa stepping toward her.
Vanessa saying, “You’re choosing a child’s tantrum over your wife?”
Then my voice.
“I know about your first husband.”
The officer paused it.
“What did you mean by that?”
Vanessa’s face went pale again.
I answered.
“Her first husband, Daniel Marsh, filed multiple abuse complaints before he disappeared. Vanessa told me he died in a boating accident.”
The officer looked at Vanessa.
“Did he?”
She said nothing.
Aaron stepped in.
“Daniel Marsh was declared missing. Not dead. His case is still technically open.”
My skin tightened.
I had known some of it.
Not that.
Vanessa turned on Aaron.
“You had no right.”
Aaron’s voice was cold.
“No. Daniel had rights. Sophie has rights. Ethan has been lied to.”
Vanessa was arrested that night.
Not for Daniel.
Not yet.
For domestic assault against a child.
For filing a false statement.
For attempted manipulation of evidence.
As they led her out, she looked at Sophie, who stood wrapped in my robe at the top of the stairs.
“You ruined everything,” Vanessa hissed.
Sophie flinched.
I moved between them.
“No,” I said. “She ended it.”
Vanessa smiled at me then.
A terrible smile.
“You think Daniel’s sister told you everything?”
The officers pulled her toward the door.
She looked back one last time.
“Ask where your wife really died, Ethan.”
The front door closed.
And just like that, the floor disappeared beneath my life again.
Laura.
May you like
My Laura.
What did Vanessa know about Laura?
