Chapter 6: Vanessa Vale's Real Name
Her name was not Vanessa Vale.
Dana had that by seven in the morning, along with a coffee she set beside my elbow without comment.
I had slept three hours on the couch.
Lily was still asleep in the bedroom, and the apartment was quiet in the particular way of early mornings after bad nights.
I read the file Dana slid across the table.
The woman in my living room — the woman who had rested her heel on my daughter's hand and called her a mute little burden — was born Vanessa Kowalski in Akron, Ohio, thirty-one years ago.
She had two prior names from two prior marriages, both ending in divorce, both involving financial disputes.
She had a civil judgment against her in the state of Illinois for fraud — a real estate scheme that had cost an elderly couple their retirement savings.
She had a restraining order filed against her in Nevada, later dropped, by a man named Thomas Hale.
She had no children of her own.
She had met Grant Carlisle at a charity gala in July.
Five months.
He had known her for five months.
"He moved her into the house in October," I said.
"Three months after meeting her at a party," Dana said.
"While you were on rotation."
"While Lily was there."
Dana didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
I thought about the restraining order in Nevada.
About Thomas Hale, whoever he was.
About the elderly couple in Illinois who had lost everything.
"She targets men," I said.
"Wealthy, distracted men," Dana said.
"Grant fits the profile perfectly.
Successful.
Emotionally isolated.
Wife who's frequently absent.
He probably felt neglected for years and she walked in and made him feel chosen."
"And the fraud conviction?"
"Civil, not criminal.
She paid a settlement.
Moved states." Dana tapped the page.
"She's careful.
She doesn't leave clean criminal records.
She leaves patterns."
I looked at the page.
At the photograph — Vanessa Kowalski at thirty-one, smooth-haired and sharp-jawed, exactly as she had looked standing in my living room in my husband's robe.
"Grant doesn't know any of this," I said.
"Almost certainly not."
"He thinks she's—"
"He thinks she's the woman who finally understood him." Dana's voice was not unkind.
"Men like Grant don't do research when they feel understood."
I folded the file.
Lily appeared in the kitchen doorway in her dirty pajamas, holding the pink birthday gift against her chest.
She looked at me, then at Dana, then back at me.
"Is there cereal?" she asked.
"There is," Dana said, already moving to the cabinet.
Lily climbed into the chair across from me and set the gift carefully on the table.
She still hadn't opened it.
"Mommy," she said.
"Yes, baby."
"Is the lady going to be at our house when we go back?"
I looked at her across the table.
Her hair was still tangled.
The marks on her arms were still there.
She was asking the question the way children ask questions they already half-know the answer to — carefully, watching your face for the truth before you say it.
"No," I said.
"She is not."
Lily looked at the gift.
Then she picked at the edge of the tape on one corner, slowly, the way she did everything — deliberately, with full attention.
"Okay," she said.
Dana set a bowl of cereal in front of her.
Lily began to eat.
My phone rang.
It was my lawyer — a woman named Carol Briggs whom I had called at six in the morning and who had called me back in eleven minutes, which told me everything I needed to know about her.
"I've reviewed the filing," Carol said.
"The petition is legitimate but the custody arrangement is not going to hold.
Not with a CPS report already in the system and documented evidence of harm to the child while in the father's care."
"What do I do?"
"You do nothing today except be her mother.
I do the rest." A pause.
"I'm filing for an emergency protective order this morning.
I'm also requesting an immediate freeze on any joint financial accounts.
Your husband has been moving money."
"I know."
"Good.
Send me everything you have."
I looked at Lily eating cereal across the table, carefully, one spoonful at a time, the pink gift sitting beside her bowl.
"Carol," I said.
"How long does this take?"
"Faster than he planned," she said.
"That I can promise you."
I ended the call.
Dana was leaning against the counter with her coffee, watching me.
"What do you need?" she asked.
"I need to go back to that house," I said.
"Not to fight.
To get Lily's things.
Her clothes.
Her butterfly clips.
The stuffed rabbit she sleeps with." I paused.
"She's been sleeping without it for months."
May you like
Dana set down her mug.
"I'll drive," she said.
