Chapter 2
Richard handed Sophie to Detective Brooks.
“Stay with her.”
Then he ran toward the mansion.
Two guards followed him through the rear entrance.
The upstairs curtain moved again.
Someone crossed the hallway above them.
Richard took the stairs two at a time.
“Stop!”
Footsteps pounded toward the east wing.
Richard reached the landing and saw a man in a maintenance uniform disappear around the corner.
The stranger carried a black bag.
One guard chased him.
Richard took the servants’ staircase, cutting him off near Sophie’s bedroom.
The man stopped when Richard appeared.
“Put down the bag.”
Instead, he grabbed the door handle.
Richard rushed forward.
The stranger swung a metal flashlight.
It struck Richard’s shoulder.
Richard drove him against the wall.
The bag fell open.
A laptop, several hard drives, and Sophie’s birth certificate spilled onto the carpet.
The man reached for a knife.
A guard tackled him before he could use it.
They pinned him down.
“Who sent you?” Richard demanded.
The man said nothing.
The second guard searched his pockets.
He found a burner phone and a keycard.
The keycard belonged to Graham Cole.
Maya arrived with two officers.
She looked at the equipment on the floor.
“He was stealing your records.”
“He was destroying evidence.”
The intruder finally smiled.
“You still don’t understand.”
Richard crouched near him.
“Then explain it.”
“You think Vanessa wanted to marry you for your money?”
“What else?”
“She wanted your name.”
The officers pulled him up.
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
But the man stopped talking.
Maya ordered the devices bagged as evidence.
Sophie stood at the end of the hallway, holding the hand of the child-services investigator.
Her face was pale.
Richard forced himself to soften.
“You shouldn’t be up here.”
“I wanted you.”
He crossed the hall and lifted her.
She looked at the birth certificate on the floor.
“Why did he take my paper?”
Richard had no answer that would not frighten her.
“He took things that didn’t belong to him.”
“Was Vanessa hiding in my room?”
“No. She’s gone.”
Sophie rested her head on his shoulder.
Richard wished he could believe his own reassurance.
Maya’s phone rang.
As she listened, her expression hardened.
“When?”
She looked toward Richard.
“We’ll be there.”
She ended the call.
“The lab received the memory card.”
“And?”
“It was corrupted during transport.”
Richard stared at her.
“That evidence never left police custody.”
“I know.”
“Then someone inside your department touched it.”
Maya lowered her voice.
“Do not accuse anyone yet.”
“Mrs. Harper vanished. The cameras were disabled. My records were forged. Now the memory card is damaged.”
“The technician made a copy before the corruption occurred.”
Richard paused.
Maya glanced toward the officers.
“Very few people know that.”
“Can the copy be opened?”
“They’re working on it.”
Richard nodded.
He understood her warning.
The conspiracy reached beyond his house.
A black SUV stopped outside.
Calvin Shaw emerged with a court officer.
The emergency hearing had been moved forward.
Richard had twenty minutes to appear by video before a family-court judge.
His attorney, Helen Ward, joined him in the library.
Helen had represented the Sterling family for years.
She read the petition and swore under her breath.
“They filed this before Vanessa was removed from the house.”
“They expected me to come home?”
“Or they planned to create another reason to remove Sophie.”
Richard looked toward the doorway.
His daughter sat on the floor with a police officer, holding a stuffed rabbit.
“What happens now?”
“The judge decides whether Sophie remains with you while the investigation continues.”
“She told police Vanessa hurt her.”
“The opposing side claims you pressured her.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“They’re using her fear against her.”
Helen opened her laptop.
“They’re also presenting testimony from Graham Cole.”
The hearing began.
Judge Patricia Monroe appeared on the screen.
Vanessa joined from a hospital room.
A small bandage covered her cheek.
She looked fragile and frightened.
It was an impressive performance.
Shaw spoke first.
He described Richard as unstable.
He said Vanessa had tried to protect Sophie from his anger.
Then Graham appeared.
Richard had trusted this man with access to his company, home, and family.
Graham did not look at him.
“Mr. Sterling became increasingly unpredictable after his wife’s death,” Graham said. “Miss Vale often protected Sophie from his outbursts.”
Richard leaned toward the screen.
“You watched Vanessa hurt my child.”
The judge warned him to remain silent.
Shaw presented the forged medical records.
Helen objected.
The judge allowed them temporarily.
Then Vanessa began to cry.
“I love Sophie as if she were my own child,” she said. “Richard resented our bond.”
Richard nearly laughed at the cruelty of it.
“She was eating from a dog bowl!”
Vanessa flinched dramatically.
“He placed the bowl there before calling police.”
Sophie heard her voice from the hallway.
She ran into the library.
“That’s not true!”
Richard tried to guide her out.
Sophie pulled away.
“She made me eat there!”
Judge Monroe leaned toward the camera.
“Who is that child?”
Helen answered.
“Sophie Sterling, Your Honor.”
Sophie climbed into Richard’s lap.
Her small body shook.
Vanessa stared through the screen.
For one second, her gentle expression vanished.
Sophie saw it.
She hid against Richard.
“Please don’t send me with her.”
The judge called for a recess.
Richard held Sophie while Helen paced.
“That helped, but the court may still want a neutral placement.”
“I am her father.”
“You admitted striking Vanessa.”
“After she hit me and tried to grab Sophie.”
“I understand. The court looks at immediate risk.”
Richard felt trapped.
Every truthful answer had been prepared for use against him.
The hearing resumed.
Judge Monroe ordered that Sophie remain temporarily with Richard’s mother, Eleanor Sterling.
Richard objected.
Eleanor lived thirty miles away.
She and Richard had barely spoken since Emily’s funeral.
Sophie hardly knew her.
The judge continued.
Richard would have supervised contact until the forged records were investigated.
Vanessa would have no contact.
The order would last seventy-two hours.
Sophie began crying.
“Daddy, no.”
Richard pressed his forehead to hers.
“It’s only for a little while.”
“You promised.”
Those two words wounded him.
“I know.”
“You said nobody would take me.”
“I’ll be close.”
Eleanor arrived before sunset.
She stepped from her car wearing a gray suit and pearls.
At sixty-eight, she still carried herself like the head of an empire.
She entered the mansion without greeting Richard.
Then she saw Sophie.
Her controlled expression softened.
“What happened to her?”
“Vanessa happened.”
Eleanor looked at the bruises.
“Where is that woman?”
“Released pending investigation.”
“Then the investigators are incompetent.”
It was the first thing Richard and his mother had agreed on in years.
Sophie clung to him.
Eleanor knelt slowly.
“You may bring anything you want to my house.”
“I want Daddy.”
Eleanor looked at Richard.
“So do I, child. But the judge has made a foolish decision, and we must survive it before we can correct it.”
Sophie studied her face.
“Will Vanessa come there?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I own better gates than your father.”
Richard almost smiled.
Almost.
They packed Sophie’s clothes.
Before leaving, Sophie slipped something into Richard’s hand.
It was a small brass key.
“Mrs. Harper gave me this.”
“What does it open?”
“She said Mommy left it.”
Richard stared at the key.
Emily had been dead for four years.
“When did Mrs. Harper give it to you?”
“Before Vanessa made her go.”
“What exactly did she say?”
“She said Grandma would know.”
Richard turned toward Eleanor.
His mother’s face had lost all color.
“You recognize it.”
Eleanor glanced toward Maya, Helen, and the officers.
“Not here.”
“Tell me.”
“It opens a safe-deposit box.”
“Whose?”
“Emily’s.”
Richard’s anger rose.
“You knew she had one?”
Eleanor took Sophie’s coat from the chair.
“Emily gave me instructions before she died.”
“You never told me.”
“She made me promise.”
“She was my wife.”
“And she was terrified of someone close to you.”
The room went silent.
Richard looked at his mother.
“Who?”
Eleanor glanced at Sophie.
“We will discuss it after she is safe.”
They drove to Eleanor’s estate in a police convoy.
Richard followed in his own car.
Maya called during the drive.
“The copied memory card opened.”
Richard tightened his grip on the wheel.
“What was on it?”
“Videos from inside your house. Mostly Vanessa speaking with Graham.”
“About Sophie?”
“About your company. Your marriage. Emily.”
Richard’s heart pounded.
“What about Emily?”
“One recording mentions a second car on the mountain road the night she died.”
Richard struggled to breathe.
“Whose car?”
“We can’t see the driver.”
“Send me the video.”
“I can’t release evidence.”
“You called to tell me something more.”
Maya hesitated.
“Vanessa says your marriage would give her legal control over Sophie’s trust if you became incapacitated.”
“She would never control it. Eleanor is the successor trustee.”
“Not according to the documents we found on the intruder.”
Richard remembered the stolen birth certificate.
“What did they change?”
“The trust was amended six months ago.”
“I signed no amendment.”
“Someone forged your signature again.”
Richard looked at Eleanor’s car ahead of him.
“Who becomes trustee?”
“Vanessa.”
A truck suddenly came from a side road.
It accelerated toward Eleanor’s vehicle.
Richard shouted into the phone.
The truck struck the rear of the police cruiser.
The cruiser spun across the road.
Eleanor’s driver swerved.
The limousine crashed through a fence and disappeared down an embankment.
Richard slammed on the brakes.
He ran before his car fully stopped.
“Eleanor!”
Smoke rose through the trees.
He slid down the muddy slope.
The limousine had hit an oak.
The driver was unconscious.
Eleanor’s door hung open.
Sophie was not inside.
Richard looked into the woods.
A man in black carried her toward a waiting motorcycle.
Sophie screamed.
May you like
“Daddy!”
Richard ran after them.
