Chapter 13 - Vanessa BreaksVanessa lasted forty-seven hours before she broke.
It was not guilt that did it.
It was Cynthia.
Detective Ellis placed the sisters in separate rooms and let each believe the other had made a deal. It was an old tactic, but greed makes people predictable.
Vanessa demanded immunity.
Detective Ellis offered coffee.
Vanessa demanded protection.
Detective Ellis offered silence.
Finally Vanessa slammed both hands on the table.
“Cynthia said Eleanor was already dead inside,” she snapped. “She said keeping her alive was mercy.”
Detective Ellis folded her hands.
“Start from the beginning.”
Vanessa laughed bitterly.
“The beginning? The beginning was when Richard Whitmore told my aunt Lydia that Alexander was unfit to inherit. Lydia spent years grooming Cynthia. I was supposed to marry Alexander after Eleanor was removed.”
“Removed how?”
“Car accident. River. No body. Clean story.”
“And Eleanor survived.”
Vanessa’s lips pressed together.
“She wasn’t supposed to wake up before the clinic.”
“But she did.”
“She fought like an animal.”
Detective Ellis watched her.
“So you kept her.”
“Cynthia kept her.”
“But you visited.”
Vanessa looked away.
“She kept asking for Alexander.”
The first hint of shame crossed her face, but it vanished quickly.
“She was pathetic.”
“No,” Detective Ellis said. “She was kidnapped.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
“Do you know what it’s like to be second to a dead woman? Alexander looked at Eleanor’s portrait more warmly than he ever looked at me.”
“So you wore a pillow and pretended to carry her child.”
Vanessa’s eyes flashed.
“I was going to be the mother on paper.”
“And after the birth?”
Vanessa said nothing.
Detective Ellis leaned forward.
“What was going to happen to Eleanor?”
Silence.
“What was going to happen to the baby?”
Vanessa’s face changed then.
Not grief.
Calculation.
“Cynthia wanted the baby sick enough to trigger the guardianship clause. Not dead at first. Just medically dependent. A fragile heir creates sympathy. Sympathy protects money.”
Even Detective Ellis went still.
“And you agreed?”
Vanessa whispered, “I agreed to be loved.”
Detective Ellis stared at her.
“No. You agreed to be rich.”
Vanessa looked toward the one-way mirror.
“Tell Alexander I’ll testify.”
“Against Cynthia?”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“Against everyone.”
That should have been victory.
Instead, ten minutes later, Cynthia’s lawyer arrived with a document that made Harlan Pierce curse out loud.
Cynthia had already filed an emergency petition.
She claimed Eleanor was mentally unstable, Alexander was emotionally compromised, and the unborn child needed an independent guardian.
The judge assigned to the petition was an old Whitmore family friend.
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Richard had been arrested.
But his machine was still moving.
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