Chapter 4 - THE EMPTY HOUSE
I was discharged from the hospital three days later.
My doctor wanted me to return to the rehabilitation center, but I insisted on going home with additional support. I needed to see Lily in a familiar place.
Thomas arranged for a nurse to stay during the day. Rosa agreed to continue working, but only after I promised her she would not be blamed for what happened.
Vanessa was gone.
Her clothes had disappeared from the bedroom. The wedding dress was no longer in the closet. The engagement photographs had been removed from the hallway.
She had left a note on the kitchen counter.
Daniel,
I need time to think. I hope you understand that everything I did was for our family. You have allowed fear to control you since the accident. I was trying to help.
Please don't let other people turn you against me.
V.
I read it twice.
Then I put it in an evidence envelope.
Lily stood near the doorway.
“Is Vanessa coming back?”
I lowered the letter.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Because she pushed you?”
“Yes.”
“Will she go to jail?”
“I don't know. That's for the police and the court to decide.”
Lily thought about that.
“Will she hurt you again?”
“No.”
I wanted to promise it.
I wanted to make the world simple for her.
But she deserved the truth.
“We're going to be careful,” I said. “And we're not going to be alone.”
She nodded.
Then she climbed onto the sofa beside me.
“Can I show you the rest of my video?”
I smiled faintly.
“There's more?”
She nodded and opened the gallery.
The first clip was the one we had already seen. The second showed Lily standing in the upstairs hallway, whispering to the camera.
“I hope Daddy likes his surprise. I'm going to show him the flowers and the card.”
Then the camera shifted.
Vanessa entered the frame.
She looked toward the staircase and checked her watch.
She took something from her purse.
A small black device.
She placed it beneath the wheelchair seat.
“What is that?” I asked.
Lily shrugged.
“I thought it was a toy.”
The video continued.
Vanessa walked away.
A few minutes later, I entered the hallway.
The device was still beneath the seat.
I stared at the screen.
“Lily, did you see her put that there?”
“No. I only saw it when I watched the video.”
I called Detective Morgan.
She arrived with a technician.
The device was a small tracking tag.
It had been attached to my wheelchair.
Morgan examined it.
“Was this installed recently?”
“We'll know after we inspect it.”
She looked at the video again.
“Your fiancée may have been tracking the chair's location.”
“Why?”
Morgan did not speculate.
But she took the device.
That night, I asked Rosa to check the house with the security company. They found another tracking tag beneath my car and a small camera in the hallway smoke detector.
The camera had been installed recently.
It pointed toward the staircase.
Not the front door.
Not the living room.
The staircase.
I sat in my study long after Lily had gone to bed.
Someone had been watching that hallway.
May you like
Someone had been waiting for the right moment.
And Vanessa had not been working alone.
