Chapter 8 - THE WOMAN WHO KEPT A COPY
Elena would not come inside until Hannah closed every curtain.
“She checks cameras,” Elena said. “Even when she is not home.”
Daniel stared at her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Elena’s expression broke. “I tried.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago. I told you Sophie cried when Mrs. Vanessa took her upstairs.”
Hannah remembered him dismissing “staff drama” during a custody exchange.
Elena twisted her hands. “You said your wife was having a difficult adjustment.”
They plugged in the drive.
The first clip showed the blue room.
Sophie stood against a wall in pajamas. Vanessa held a phone.
“Say it again.”
“I want Hannah.”
Vanessa’s voice sharpened. “Wrong answer.”
“I want Mommy Hannah.”
“Wrong name.”
Sophie began to cry.
Vanessa stopped recording on the phone but not, apparently, on the security camera.
She crouched until her face was level with Sophie’s.
“If you keep making Daddy choose, someday he’ll get tired of choosing you.”
The next clip showed Sophie at dinner.
Vanessa moved her plate away every time Sophie said “Mommy Hannah.”
The next showed the blue room door closing for twenty-two minutes.
The next showed Vanessa filming Sophie while repeating phrases about Hannah being angry, unstable, and “confusing.”
Hannah could not watch the fifth clip.
When it ended, he stood and walked to the sink.
“I left her there.”
Hannah’s voice was flat. “Yes.”
He turned. “I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t want to know.”
The words landed.
Elena wiped her eyes. “There is more.”
Hannah looked at the drive. “More videos?”
“No.”
Elena reached into her purse and unfolded a photograph.
It showed Vanessa sitting at a café with a woman Hannah recognized immediately.
Margo Vance.
The custody evaluator Daniel’s attorney had proposed only two days earlier.
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On the table between them was a thick folder labeled:
HANNAH PIERCE — FITNESS CONCERNS.
