Chapter 9 - The Man From the Crash
Police found Alex Barrett before midnight.
He was sitting inside a stolen car near the state line.
Noah wasn’t with him.
Alex surrendered without a fight.
Ethan almost attacked him in the interrogation room.
Randall held him back.
“You killed my wife!”
Alex looked exhausted.
“I helped kill her.”
Maya stared through the observation window.
Ethan went silent.
Alex continued.
“I didn’t know what Vanessa planned at first.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
“Then talk.”
Alex rubbed both hands over his face.
“Vanessa paid me to copy Claire’s schedule. Passwords. Meetings. Places she went.”
“Why?”
“She said Claire was cheating you.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“And you believed her?”
“I needed money.”
“For what?”
“My daughter had leukemia.”
The room went quiet.
“She promised me fifty thousand dollars.”
Maya felt anger and pity collide.
Alex kept talking.
“Then Claire caught me copying files.”
“She fired you?”
“No.”
Maya looked at Ethan.
Alex shook his head.
“She offered to help my daughter.”
Ethan stared.
“That sounds like Claire.”
“She gave me money herself. No conditions.”
His voice broke.
“That’s when I told her about Vanessa.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What happened?”
“Claire started collecting evidence.”
“The black box?”
“A recorder.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Alex looked toward the mirror.
Toward Maya.
“She gave it to the housekeeper.”
Maya stepped back.
“What?”
Randall opened the door.
“Maya.”
She entered.
Alex looked directly at her.
“Claire told me if anything happened, the maid had everything.”
“I didn’t.”
“She believed you did.”
Maya shook her head.
“She gave me letters.”
“She gave you more than letters.”
“When?”
“The morning before she died.”
Maya’s mind raced.
Claire had handed her an old recipe book.
Maya had forgotten about it.
A thick blue cookbook.
Claire’s grandmother’s recipes.
“Where is it?” Ethan asked.
Maya whispered, “At my apartment.”
Randall stood.
“We move now.”
Maya’s apartment was thirty minutes away.
They found the front door broken.
Drawers emptied.
Furniture overturned.
Her bedroom had been destroyed.
Ethan looked at her.
“Where’s the cookbook?”
Maya ran to the kitchen.
A shelf had been ripped apart.
The blue cookbook was gone.
“No.”
She searched through broken dishes.
Nothing.
Then she noticed flour scattered across the floor.
A footprint crossed it.
Small.
Narrow heel.
Vanessa.
Maya stared at the back window.
Open.
“She beat us here.”
Brooks pointed toward the fire escape.
“Maybe not long ago.”
Maya turned.
Then she saw something underneath the refrigerator.
A torn piece of blue cardboard.
She reached beneath it.
A tiny memory card had been taped inside the cookbook’s spine.
Vanessa had taken the book.
But missed the card.
Ethan held his breath.
“What’s on it?”
Maya inserted it into her laptop.
One video file appeared.
Claire Cole’s face filled the screen.
May you like
She looked terrified.
“If you’re watching this,” Claire said, “Vanessa has probably already tried to kill me.”
