Chapter 8 - Elena Saw Everything
Elena Alvarez cried the moment she saw Daniel.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
They met in a quiet interview room at the station. Detective Vega sat at the end of the table.
Daniel did not know what to say.
So he asked the question that had been hurting him all day.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Elena looked down.
“I tried.”
She opened her purse and removed an old phone.
“Vanessa blocked my number on your phone. Then she sent me messages from your account.”
Daniel stared.
Elena handed him screenshots.
One message appeared to come from Daniel.
Elena, do not contact me or Lily again. Vanessa told me what you did. If you return to my property, I will call police.
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“I never wrote this.”
“I know that now.”
“What did you see?”
Elena wiped her eyes.
“Lily spilled apple juice in the laundry room. Vanessa got angry. She grabbed Lily by both arms and put her in the dark pantry.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ten minutes. Lily was screaming for you.”
Daniel stood so abruptly the chair scraped across the floor.
Vega spoke calmly.
“Mr. Reed, sit down.”
He did not.
Elena’s voice broke.
“I opened the pantry. Vanessa told me I was fired. She said if I ever told you, she would say I stole jewelry.”
Daniel looked at Vega.
The detective’s eyes sharpened.
“Jewelry?”
Elena nodded.
“She showed me a bracelet in a bag and said she would put it in my car.”
Daniel sat back down.
It was almost exactly what Vanessa had done to Maya, their weekend babysitter six months earlier.
Maya had abruptly quit after Vanessa accused her of stealing earrings.
Daniel had believed Vanessa.
He whispered, “Maya.”
Vega wrote the name.
“Full name?”
“Maya Torres.”
Elena looked at him.
“She did not steal.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Another person he had failed because Vanessa sounded believable and the other person sounded scared.
Vega asked Elena what else she had seen.
The answer got worse.
Vanessa mocked Lily when she cried.
She made the child sit alone at the kitchen table for long periods.
She repeatedly told Lily that Daniel would “get tired of difficult girls.”
She removed Claire’s photograph from Lily’s bedroom and threw it in a drawer.
When Lily retrieved it, Vanessa took away her stuffed rabbit for three days.
Daniel’s anger became almost unbearable.
But Elena was not finished.
“One day Vanessa was talking to a man in the kitchen,” she said. “They did not know I was downstairs.”
“What man?” Vega asked.
“I never saw his face. I heard his voice.”
“What did he say?”
Elena hesitated.
“He said Daniel could not be pushed too fast or people would notice.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“And Vanessa?”
“She said, ‘Then we make him look unstable slowly.’”
Vega stopped writing.
Elena continued.
“The man said he wanted more money.”
“Did Vanessa use his name?”
Elena nodded.
“Michael.”
Daniel’s mind went to the email signed M.C.
Martin Cole? No. Claire’s attorney had nothing to gain and had just helped them.
M.C.
Michael.
Detective Vega asked Elena to listen to the audio from the hidden bedroom camera.
The moment the man’s voice played, Elena’s face changed.
“That’s him.”
Vega paused the video on the clearest frame of the stranger.
Then she ran a police database search.
Thirty seconds later, a driver’s-license photo appeared.
Michael Carter.
Former insurance adjuster.
Convicted eight years earlier of forgery and financial fraud.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Then Vega opened the family-association tab.
Michael Carter had one listed sibling.
May you like
Vanessa Carter Hale.
