Chapter 5
The next morning, police searched the house.
They found the cut camera wire.
The garden shears in Vanessa’s pool storage bin.
Wet footprints near the side gate.
The remote.
A towel in the outdoor trash with mud and pool water on it.
And Vanessa’s second phone.
I did not know she had a second phone.
That discovery made Detective Lewis’s expression change.
People with nothing to hide usually do not keep secret phones in pool storage.
The phone contained messages to a woman named Elise Warner.
I had never heard of her.
Detective Lewis read enough to turn quiet.
Then she showed me.
Vanessa: I can’t keep doing this. He loves the baby more than me.
Elise: Then create a situation where the help is unsafe.
Vanessa: Maria is always holding him.
Elise: Domestic staff become easy scapegoats if there is an incident.
Vanessa: What kind of incident?
Elise: Something frightening, not fatal. Enough to remove her and make him dependent on you.
I felt sick.
Something frightening.
Not fatal.
As if babies obey risk limits.
As if water negotiates.
There were more messages.
Vanessa: The pool camera watches everything.
Elise: Disable it temporarily. Blame equipment.
Vanessa: If stroller moved while Maria was outside?
Elise: She will be blamed for poor supervision.
Detective Lewis took the phone back.
I gripped the hospital chair.
“She planned it.”
“Yes.”
“She wanted Maria blamed.”
“Yes.”
“She risked Noah to fire Maria.”
The detective’s voice softened.
“That appears to be the theory.”
Theory.
Law uses careful words because it has to.
May you like
My body did not.
My wife used my son as bait.
