Is the baby okay?”
There are lies parents tell to protect children.
I had told Brooke dozens during her life.
The injection wouldn’t hurt.
The thunder couldn’t hurt her.
The dog that disappeared when she was seven had probably found another family.
But this lie would last only minutes, and she deserved more than that.
I bent over her hand.
“No, sweetheart.”
She stared at me.
“No?”
I shook my head.
The sound she made was so small that I will hear it for the rest of my life.
Dr.
Mitchell came in moments later as alarms began rising on her monitors.
He asked me to step outside while the nurses calmed her.
I walked into the corridor feeling as though someone had opened my chest.
That was when I remembered the phone call I had made earlier.
I had spent part of my career working criminal prosecutions before leaving that life behind.
I knew what money could buy, but I also knew what it could not erase when evidence was preserved quickly enough.
From the hospital corridor, before rage carried me toward the Vance estate, I had contacted people who knew exactly how easily a domestic crime scene could disappear inside a wealthy home.
I had given them one warning:
Do not let the Vance family clean that house before investigators see it.
Now my phone showed several missed calls.
I returned one.
The news changed everything.
Police had secured the estate.
Trevor and Victoria had initially claimed Brooke left voluntarily after becoming “emotional.”
Then investigators found blood.
Not outside.
Inside the house.
There were traces near the study, along the corridor and close to the rear entrance.
Trevor changed his story.
Now he said Brooke had fallen.
Victoria said Brooke had been drinking.
The hospital’s toxicology work contradicted that.
Then investigators located the golf club.
It had been cleaned.
Not well enough.
I sat down slowly in the hospital waiting room.
The mansion did not need fire.
It was already beginning to burn in a different way.
By morning, Trevor arrived at the hospital with a lawyer.
He never made it past security.
I saw him through the glass doors downstairs.
His expensive coat was buttoned to his throat.
His hair was perfect.
He looked annoyed rather than frightened, as if his wife’s hospitalization were an inconvenient appointment someone had added to his calendar.
When he saw me, his expression hardened.
I walked toward the doors but stayed on the protected side.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Away from you.”
“She’s my wife.”
“That didn’t seem to matter last night.”
His lawyer touched his arm, warning him to stop talking.
Trevor ignored him.
