Chapter 6
We went back to the house with two police officers and my mother behind us.
I did not want to step inside.
But Vanessa had mentioned my drawer, and I needed to know what she had planted.
Because I knew Vanessa.
If she could not win with tears, she would win with evidence.
Even fake evidence.
The upstairs bedroom smelled like my perfume and Richard’s soap.
It should have comforted me.
It made my skin crawl.
I opened my dresser.
The top drawer looked normal.
Scarves.
A jewelry box.
Old receipts.
Then I saw the envelope.
White.
Unmarked.
Not mine.
Richard stood beside me.
“Don’t touch it,” he said.
One officer photographed it, then opened it with gloves.
Inside were printed bank statements.
My name was circled in red.
Large transfers.
Thousands of dollars.
To an account I had never seen.
The officer looked at me.
“These yours?”
“No.”
Richard took one glance and went pale.
“That’s Vanessa’s old account.”
My mother made a small sound behind us.
The officer flipped through the pages.
“Someone wants this to look like Mrs. Anna was stealing from you.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“She planted it.”
I looked toward the hallway.
“How did she get in here?”
Richard checked the security logs.
His face darkened.
“She came in yesterday while we were at Leo’s pediatric appointment.”
“Why?”
No one answered.
Then my mother called from Leo’s room.
“Anna.”
I ran.
She stood near the closet, holding Leo’s blue dinosaur blanket.
A small black device was clipped inside one corner.
Richard took it carefully.
A recorder.
My knees weakened.
“She recorded us?”
The officer bagged it.
“Maybe. Or she was trying to.”
Richard leaned against the wall like the house itself had betrayed him.
“She had access to everything.”
I looked at him.
“Because you gave it to her.”
He nodded.
No defense.
No excuses.
“Yes.”
His honesty hurt less than his old protection of her.
We spent the next hour finding more.
A spare key taped under a guest bathroom drawer.
A second phone hidden behind books in Richard’s office.
Photos of our schedules.
Photos of Leo at the park.
My hands shook so badly my mother had to hold them.
Richard called his lawyer.
Then his company’s security chief.
Then the bank.
Every door Vanessa had used began closing.
By afternoon, Sergeant Hale called.
“We found something on Ms. Hayes’s phone,” she said. “You both need to come in.”
Richard looked at me.
I already knew I would go.
Fear had followed me all night.
May you like
Now anger walked beside it.
And anger had better posture.
