Chapter 11 - The Blue Folder
The officers separated Vanessa and Lucas before they could speak to each other.
Lucas had arrived through the side entrance forty minutes before we did. He claimed he was there to "support his sister."
The garage video showed him kneeling beside my SUV with the pill container in his hand.
That ended the performance quickly.
While police secured the footage, I went upstairs with Officer Mills to collect Ella's clothes.
I opened her bedroom door and stopped.
Her room looked untouched, but her closet was half empty.
Two suitcases were packed behind the dresses.
A luggage tag read:
ELLA BROOKS
ST. CATHERINE'S RESIDENTIAL ACADEMY
My knees nearly gave out.
She had not just threatened to send my daughter away.
She had packed her.
On Ella's desk sat a blue folder.
The moment I reached for it, Vanessa shouted from downstairs.
"Do not touch my private documents!"
Private documents in my daughter's bedroom.
I opened it.
There was a school withdrawal form from Ella's elementary school.
My signature was forged at the bottom.
There was also a psychological evaluation claiming Ella suffered from "severe oppositional behavior, fixation on deceased mother, and manipulative attachment to father."
The evaluator was Dr. Simon Harlan.
I knew the name.
Vanessa had introduced him to us at a charity dinner the previous spring.
He had never examined Ella.
Tucked behind the evaluation was a draft affidavit from Vanessa.
It described me as volatile, absent, and intoxicated.
Then I reached the last page.
A typed paragraph stated that Ella had "frequently expressed fear that her father might hurt himself or others."
Beneath it was a blank line labeled:
May you like
CHILD'S SIGNATURE.
And beside the line sat a fresh blue marker.
