Chapter 2 - THE LAST NIGHT OF ELENA VANCE
2
For several seconds, neither Hector nor I moved.
The monitors kept playing.
The gardener crossed the patio.
A delivery truck passed the front gate.
Sunlight spilled across the marble floors of my home.
Everything looked normal.
But nothing was normal anymore.
“Hector,” I whispered.
“I heard it.”
“Save everything.”
“Already recording.”
“Make three copies.”
He nodded.
I wanted to storm into the living room and drag Chloe out of my house.
Instead, Hector reminded me of something I had forgotten.
“If she knows something about Mrs. Vance, confronting her immediately could destroy whatever evidence still exists.”
The rational part of me understood.
The husband inside me wanted blood.
Elena had died three years earlier on Mulholland Drive.
Her Mercedes had left the road shortly after midnight.
Police concluded she had lost control during heavy rain.
There was no evidence of another vehicle striking hers.
No alcohol.
No mechanical defect found in the initial report.
She survived the crash long enough to reach Cedars-Sinai.
Then complications took her before sunrise.
I had been in Chicago.
By the time my plane landed, my wife was dead.
For years, I tortured myself over missing her final hours.
Now Chloe had spoken as though she knew something about them.
Marisol gathered the girls.
“You two should go upstairs.”
Chloe blocked them.
“No. We are finishing this conversation.”
Marisol looked directly at a smoke detector near the ceiling.
Not at Chloe.
At the detector.
One of our cameras was hidden beside it.
My pulse jumped.
She knew.
Or suspected.
Marisol said, “Some conversations should never happen without witnesses.”
Chloe’s expression changed.
She glanced around the room.
Then she smiled.
“You really think Alexander watches his own family?”
Marisol did not answer.
That silence saved her.
Chloe picked up her purse.
“I have a fitting downtown.”
She pointed at Valeria.
“When I return, I expect an apology.”
Valeria stared at the floor.
Chloe left.
The instant the front door closed, Sofia burst into tears.
Marisol dropped to her knees and hugged her.
Valeria remained standing.
No tears.
No shaking.
Just a hard little expression I had never seen on my nine-year-old daughter.
Then she whispered, “We have enough now.”
Marisol froze.
“You were recording?”
Valeria pulled out the black phone.
Marisol closed her eyes.
“Valeria, I told you not to do that anymore.”
“She lies to Daddy.”
“Yes.”
“She makes him think you steal.”
“I know.”
“She said Mom’s name.”
At that, Marisol’s face collapsed.
Valeria noticed.
“So you know.”
Marisol glanced toward the nearest camera again.
“I know your mother was afraid before she died.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Hector pulled another chair toward me.
I didn’t sit.
“What is she talking about?”
We kept listening.
Marisol led both children into the kitchen and lowered her voice.
“Your mother discovered something about Miss Chloe.”
Valeria whispered, “But Daddy met Chloe after Mom died.”
Marisol went completely still.
Then she said, “That is what your father believes.”
I looked at Hector.
“What?”
The footage continued.
“Your mother knew Chloe before the accident,” Marisol said.
Valeria frowned.
“How?”
Marisol hesitated.
“Her name wasn’t Chloe.”
I felt the room tilt.
My fiancée had entered my life fourteen months after Elena’s death.
We met at a charity auction in Beverly Hills.
Chloe Harrington.
Thirty-six.
Raised in Boston.
Former luxury brand consultant.
Parents supposedly deceased.
No siblings.
No previous marriage.
Clean background investigation.
Or so I had believed.
Marisol continued.
“Years ago, she called herself Claire.”
Valeria whispered, “Claire what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Mom know?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell Daddy?”
“She tried.”
That sentence destroyed me.
I searched my memory.
The week before Elena died, she had called while I was in Chicago.
I had been inside a conference room negotiating the acquisition of a medical technology company.
She told me she needed to discuss something important.
I said I was busy.
She said, “Alexander, this can’t wait.”
I told her we would talk when I returned.
We never did.
My chest tightened.
Marisol sat at the kitchen table.
“Your mother left something behind.”
The girls stared at her.
So did I.
“She gave it to me because she was frightened.”
“Where is it?” Valeria asked.
“I hid it.”
“Why?”
“Because after she died, someone searched my apartment.”
Hector cursed under his breath.
Marisol continued.
“They didn’t take money. They didn’t take jewelry. They opened drawers, ripped apart cushions, searched paperwork.”
“Did you call police?” Valeria asked.
“Yes. They said it looked like burglary.”
“Was it Chloe?”
“I couldn’t prove anything.”
Sofia asked the simplest question.
“What did Mommy hide?”
Marisol looked toward the hallway.
Then whispered, “A key.”
Thirty minutes later, I sent Hector’s deputy to follow Chloe discreetly.
Hector stayed with me.
Marisol made lunch as though nothing had happened.
Then my phone rang.
Chloe.
I stared at her name.
Hector nodded.
I answered.
“Hey.”
Her voice was sweet again.
The transformation chilled me.
“How was the flight?”
I looked at her empty chair on the monitor.
“Smooth.”
“Already in Canada?”
“Just landed.”
“I miss you.”
I nearly laughed.
Instead, I said, “I miss you too.”
There was a pause.
Then she asked, “Did you happen to speak with the jeweler before you left?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Another pause.
“What?”
“Nothing. I was thinking about our wedding bands.”
Three months until the wedding.
Three months until she became legally tied to me and my children.
“I’ll call tonight,” I said.
“I love you, Alexander.”
I could not make myself say it back.
So I disconnected.
A moment later, Hector’s radio buzzed.
His deputy spoke.
“Sir, Miss Harrington didn’t go to a fitting.”
“Where did she go?”
“A storage facility in Van Nuys.”
My attention sharpened.
“Unit number?”
“Two-four-seven.”
Hector typed quickly.
The company database appeared.
The rental account was registered to Chloe Harrington.
But beneath her listed emergency contact was another name.
C. Bennett.
Hector searched public records.
Nothing useful.
Then he tried an older database.
A photograph appeared.
It was Chloe.
Younger.
Dark hair instead of blonde.
Different makeup.
Different clothes.
But undeniably her.
The name underneath read:
CLAIRE BENNETT.
And beside it was a record from twelve years earlier.
Employment:
St. Augustine Recovery Center.
I recognized the institution immediately.
Elena had spent six weeks there after Sofia’s complicated birth.
Not for addiction.
For severe postpartum depression.
My future wife had worked at the same private facility where my late wife had once been a patient.
Years before Chloe claimed they had ever met.
I stared at the screen.
Then another document appeared.
A disciplinary complaint.
Filed by a patient.
The patient’s name had been partially redacted.
But not enough.
May you like
E. Vance.
My wife.
