Chapter 7 - TESSA'S REAL NAME
I looked across the room at Tessa.
She saw the question on my face.
Vivienne kept talking.
“Ask her what her last name was before she changed it.”
The call ended.
“Tessa?”
Her shoulders dropped.
“My name was Tessa Moreno.”
Ortiz stiffened.
“Moreno?”
Tessa nodded.
“My sister was Elisa Moreno.”
The detective pulled out her phone, searched, and showed me a newspaper article from six years earlier.
INFANT DIES AFTER RARE IMMUNE COMPLICATION AT HARTFORD CLINIC.
The mother pictured outside the hospital was Tessa’s sister.
“My niece, Sofia, was one of the four babies who died,” Tessa said. “Elisa signed a settlement because she was terrified. Then she killed herself two years later.”
I sat down.
“Amelia knew?”
“She found me while investigating the trial. I was working in a hotel then. She offered me a job here because she thought Malcolm’s people were watching me.”
“So you came into my house under another name.”
“To stay alive.”
“And you never told me.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I wanted to. Amelia begged me not to until she could prove everything.”
Ortiz asked, “What can you testify to?”
“I saw Malcolm Vale pay the clinic director. I recorded part of their conversation.”
“Where is it?”
Tessa looked toward the nursery.
“Amelia hid my recorder.”
“In the bear?”
“No.”
She gave a broken laugh.
“She said the bear was too obvious.”
Noah fussed in my arms. I rocked him automatically.
Tessa looked at his tiny sneakers.
Then her face changed.
“What?” I asked.
“Amelia bought those shoes before Noah could walk.”
“So?”
“She hated baby shoes. Said they were pointless.”
Tessa dropped to her knees and pulled off Noah’s left sneaker.
Beneath the insole was a thin black chip wrapped in plastic.
Ortiz stared.
“Your wife hid evidence in a baby shoe.”
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I almost laughed. Instead I felt like crying.
Then the front windows exploded inward.
