Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Claire refused to tell her full story until Ava was somewhere safe.
It was the first demand she made.
Ethan agreed.
Ava left the airport with Rosa and two security officers.
Before leaving, she stopped in front of Claire.
The child looked up at her.
“Are you really my mom?”
Claire struggled to breathe.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come home?”
The question nearly destroyed her.
“I tried.”
Ava studied her.
Then walked away.
Claire did not ask for a hug.
Ethan noticed that too.
After Ava left, Claire began.
Five years earlier, she had discovered irregular transfers from one of Ethan’s investment companies.
The amounts were small by Cole Holdings standards.
Forty thousand.
Seventy-five thousand.
Ninety-two thousand.
But all went to consultants that appeared not to exist.
Claire had shown the records to Vanessa.
At the time, Vanessa was working as an outside financial adviser to several Cole subsidiaries.
“I trusted her,” Claire said.
Vanessa laughed from the opposite side of the interview room.
“You were paranoid.”
Claire ignored her.
“She told me Ethan would think I was accusing his employees because I wanted control of the company.”
Ethan remembered.
During the months before Claire disappeared, she had become increasingly suspicious.
He had thought grief after her father’s death was affecting her.
Now he wondered how much of that belief Vanessa had encouraged.
Claire continued.
“The night I disappeared, Vanessa called me.”
Vanessa’s expression tightened.
“She told me she had proof.”
“Proof of what?” Ortiz asked.
“That someone was stealing from Ethan.”
Claire had driven to a parking area overlooking Blackwater Ridge.
Vanessa was waiting.
So was another man.
Claire never saw his face clearly.
They argued.
Vanessa demanded the files Claire had collected.
Claire refused.
She remembered a cloth against her mouth.
Then darkness.
Ethan stared at Vanessa.
“She kidnapped you?”
“I woke up in a medical facility.”
Claire’s voice weakened.
“The room had no windows.”
“What facility?”
“Haven House Behavioral Recovery Center.”
Julian looked up.
Ethan noticed.
“You know it?”
The lawyer nodded reluctantly.
“I’ve seen the name.”
“Where?”
“In Vanessa’s financial records.”
Vanessa immediately spoke.
“No.”
Julian looked at her.
“You paid them.”
She glared.
“You have attorney-client privilege.”
“Not for ongoing criminal conduct.”
Her face changed.
Claire continued.
“At Haven House they called me Marian Cole.”
Ethan frowned.
“Cole?”
“A false identity.”
The facility told Claire that she had suffered a psychotic breakdown.
That Ethan had filed for divorce.
That Ava had been moved overseas.
They showed her documents.
Photographs.
Even a newspaper clipping reporting Ethan and Ava had died in a boating accident.
“That’s insane,” Ethan whispered.
“That was the point.”
For months, Claire believed pieces of it.
She had been drugged heavily.
Every time she demanded a telephone, staff told her she had already called people and become violent.
When she refused medication, she was restrained.
When she tried to leave, they produced involuntary commitment papers carrying a physician’s signature.
“Who signed them?” Ortiz asked.
“Dr. Raymond Keene.”
Julian closed his eyes.
Ethan saw it.
“What?”
Julian answered.
“Keene signed one of Ava’s behavioral assessments too.”
Ethan turned slowly toward Vanessa.
The assessment Vanessa had shown him months earlier.
The one claiming Ava was experiencing severe emotional instability.
The one Vanessa used to recommend the residential school Ava was supposedly flying to.
Everything was connected.
Claire continued.
After almost three years, Haven House changed owners.
A nurse named Miriam Lowe began questioning Claire’s file.
There were no court orders.
No verifiable family contacts.
No original identification documents.
Only copies.
Miriam secretly stopped administering part of Claire’s medication.
Her thinking cleared.
Claire escaped eight months later.
“Why didn’t you come home then?” Ethan asked.
Pain crossed her face.
“Because when I escaped, I called the number I still remembered.”
“Our home?”
“Yes.”
“Who answered?”
Claire looked at Vanessa.
“She did.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Claire continued.
“I asked for you.”
Vanessa said Ethan had remarried.
That Ava was happy.
Then she told Claire if she came near either of them, Ava would disappear next.
Vanessa laughed softly.
“You don’t have proof.”
Claire reached into her coat.
Officer Ortiz moved quickly.
Claire slowly removed a folded piece of paper.
“A nurse at Haven House taught me something.”
She placed it on the table.
“Never trust one copy.”
The paper showed telephone records.
A call from a prepaid phone to Ethan’s home.
Three years earlier.
Four minutes and seventeen seconds.
May you like
Claire looked at Vanessa.
“I kept everything.”
