Chapter 6 - CLAIRE
The trust changed everything.
Leo’s mother, Claire, had inherited money and company shares from her family. After her death, most of it went into a protected trust for Leo.
Vanessa could not touch it unless she gained legal authority over him.
Ortiz traced payments from Vanessa to Simon Vale through a consulting company.
Then she found something older.
The same company had paid an auto-repair shop four years earlier.
The shop that serviced Claire’s SUV one week before her fatal crash.
Richard went still.
“Claire hit black ice.”
“That’s what the report says,” Ortiz replied.
“The brakes failed after impact.”
“That’s what the report says.”
Vanessa had told Richard they first met fourteen months after Claire died.
But photographs from a charity event proved Vanessa knew Claire before the crash.
One showed Vanessa watching Claire from across a ballroom.
Another showed her talking to Simon Vale.
Police reopened the crash file.
The repair-shop owner, Pete Larkin, claimed the payment was for marketing.
His shop had no marketing contract.
No campaign.
No reason to receive twelve thousand dollars.
By evening, Pete disappeared.
Richard sat in Claire’s old study holding a picture of her with newborn Leo.
“If Vanessa had anything to do with this—”
“We don’t know yet,” I said.
A knock interrupted us.
Marcus entered with an evidence bag.
“This was taped under Vanessa’s dresser.”
Inside was a brass key and a receipt for a storage unit rented in her name for three years.
Police opened Unit 314 that night.
They found photographs of Richard.
Photographs of Leo.
Photographs of me pushing his stroller.
And photographs of Claire taken months before she died.
On a folding table sat a damaged metal part from a vehicle.
Richard stared when Ortiz sent the picture.
The tag was still attached.
HALE, CLAIRE — VEHICLE EVIDENCE.
The part had supposedly been destroyed after the crash investigation closed.
Instead, Vanessa had kept it.
Ortiz called ten minutes later.
“It’s part of the brake assembly.”
Richard closed his eyes.
May you like
And suddenly we were no longer investigating what Vanessa had planned to do.
We were investigating what she might already have done.
