Chapter 2 - The Woman in the Photograph
By morning, Claire refused to let Ethan leave the hospital room alone.
The police had taken the bottle for testing, but they hadn't arrested anyone.
Ethan insisted that was good news.
Claire knew better.
Good news didn't make a man sweat every time someone mentioned his wife's name.
A detective named Marcus Reed returned just after breakfast.
He placed a photograph on the table.
Claire stared at it.
It showed Vanessa standing outside their house.
But there was something wrong.
The photograph had been taken three days before the attack.
“Where did you get this?” Claire asked.
“Security footage.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
He wouldn't meet her eyes.
Detective Reed turned to him.
“You told us Vanessa hadn't been to the house in months.”
Ethan said nothing.
Claire's voice was barely audible.
“You lied to me too.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From Vanessa?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
“Then from whom?”
Before Ethan could respond, Lily screamed from the hallway.
Claire jumped out of bed despite the pain.
A nurse was holding Lily back from a man standing near the elevators.
Claire recognized him.
She had seen him once before.
Across the street.
Watching their house.
The man turned and walked away.
Detective Reed ran after him.
Ethan grabbed Claire's arm.
“Don't.”
She pulled free.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Ethan looked toward the elevator.
Then he whispered, “That's Vanessa's brother.”
Claire felt a chill.
“Vanessa never told me she had a brother.”
“She didn't want you to know.”
“Why?”
Ethan's face hardened.
“Because he isn't safe.”
Later that afternoon, Detective Reed returned with another discovery.
The little bottle contained no poison.
Instead, it contained a powerful sedative mixed into milk.
Someone had wanted Claire unconscious.
Not dead.
Unconscious.
That meant the attack had a purpose.
And according to the hospital records, Claire had been unconscious for nearly six hours.
Six hours in which someone could have entered her home.
Someone could have searched it.
Someone could have taken something.
Detective Reed asked Claire what was missing.
She couldn't think of anything.
Then Lily walked into the room.
She looked at her mother.
“The red box.”
Claire's breath stopped.
“What red box?”
Lily hugged her rabbit.
“The one Mommy keeps under the bed.”
Claire remembered.
A small red metal box.
She had not opened it in years.
May you like
And it contained something Ethan had never known about.
Or so she thought.
