Chapter 7 - The Girl in the Security Footage
The woman in the still wore a dark coat and kept her face turned from the camera. I couldn't swear it was Victoria. The detective wouldn't let me pretend a guess was evidence.
"We need to establish who carried the badge," Kim said. "For now, stay focused on what you personally saw."
I went home and wrote every detail I remembered from the bus station: the smell, the time, Pike's watch, the phrase he'd used. When fear turns years into a blur, small facts can give it edges again.
A family attorney named Celia Brooks agreed to represent me independently. I paid her an initial retainer from my savings. Ethan offered to cover the rest. I refused until Celia explained how that could be done without giving his lawyers any say over my decisions.
She also arranged for my statements and Lily's medical records to be shared with investigators through proper channels. "Your daughter is not evidence for anyone to parade around," she told me. "We protect her first."
Grace visited with a box of my belongings from the mansion: work shoes, a worn sweater, the library book Lily had begged to take home. At the bottom was a tiny music box I'd left on a kitchen shelf.
"Mr. Caldwell bought it," Grace said. "He said Lily might like a song without a piano."
I couldn't decide whether that was thoughtful or heartbreaking.
Grace hesitated at the door. "One more thing. The company staff file says you resigned from Columbia by choice. There is a copy of a withdrawal letter in Victoria's office."
"I didn't write a withdrawal letter. I left after someone threatened us."
"Then someone wrote one for you."
May you like
She sent me a photograph. The document used my name and student number and carried a clean-looking signature.
Under the signature was a date two weeks after I had already fled New York.
