Chapter 4 - Before She Was Lauren BennettI met Lauren at a charity gala eleven years earlier.
“I made the promise to both of them,” she said.
“Then Mom can release you from it.”
She looked toward Evelyn.
My mother had been awake for several minutes, watching us.
“Mom, do you know what Nora is talking about?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
That was answer enough.
I pulled a chair beside the bed.
“What happened in 1998?”
Mom’s good hand trembled.
“Thomas.”
“Thomas Vale?”
She nodded.
“What happened to him?”
Mom looked at Nora.
Nora breathed out slowly.
“Thomas Vale worked for your father.”
“I remember.”
“He was your father’s accountant.”
That part I hadn’t known.
Nora continued.
“He discovered money being stolen from the company.”
“By my father?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Your uncle.”
My father’s younger brother, Richard Bennett.
I hadn’t seen Richard in twelve years.
He had left Virginia after a bitter argument with my father. I had been told it was about business strategy.
Nora shook her head.
“It was about money.”
“How much?”
“At first? Maybe two million. Over time, much more.”
“And Thomas discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He told your father.”
“And?”
“Your father confronted Richard.”
I could almost see it.
Dad and Uncle Richard had always been opposites.
My father, disciplined.
Richard, charming and reckless.
“Did Richard kill Thomas?”
Nora’s silence answered before her words did.
“No one could prove it.”
I stood.
“Jesus.”
“Thomas drove off a rural road three days before he was supposed to meet with federal investigators.”
“And Dad covered it up?”
“No.”
Nora’s voice hardened.
“Your father spent years trying to prove what happened.”
“Then why did he hide it from me?”
“Because Richard threatened you.”
The room seemed to shrink.
“Me?”
“You were seventeen. He knew where you went to school. He knew your girlfriend’s name. He knew your schedule.”
I stared at my mother.
“You knew?”
She nodded, tears gathering.
“Dad sent me to boarding school the next semester.”
Another nod.
I had hated him for that.
For years.
I thought he was disappointed in me.
Apparently, he had been protecting me.
“What does this have to do with Lauren?”
Nora looked away.
“I don’t know.”
Mom made a sound.
“D-Dan…”
“Daniel?”
She nodded.
“Who is he?”
She struggled.
“Vale.”
I froze.
“Daniel Vale?”
Another nod.
Rosales, standing near the doorway, stepped closer.
“Thomas Vale had a son?”
Nora nodded.
“He was about twelve when Thomas died.”
I felt the pieces shifting beneath my feet.
“Lauren knows Thomas Vale’s son.”
Mom nodded.
“How?”
She tried to speak.
Nothing came.
I took her hand.
“Don’t force it.”
She squeezed my fingers, frustrated.
Nora said, “Your mother asked me three weeks ago to find an old box from your father’s study.”
“What box?”
“A metal document case.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
“Bank records. Letters. Copies of checks.”
“Evidence against Richard?”
“I think so.”
“Where is it?”
Nora’s face changed.
“It disappeared.”
“When?”
“Four days ago.”
I remembered Lauren carrying a heavy tote bag out of the study four days earlier.
She had said she was taking clothes to charity.
My chest tightened.
“Lauren found it.”
“That’s what your mother believed.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Mom squeezed my hand again.
Her eyes pleaded with me.
I knew the answer.
She had spent her whole life protecting me.
Even when I was forty-three years old.
“You thought keeping me ignorant would keep me safe.”
She nodded.
I wanted to be angry.
Instead, I felt exhausted.
Detective Rosales’s phone rang.
She stepped into the hall.
A few minutes later, she returned with a very different expression.
“Mr. Bennett, we received preliminary blood results.”
I stood.
“What did they find?”
“Your mother has a significant amount of zolpidem in her system.”
I knew the medication.
“Sleeping pills?”
“Yes.”
“She isn’t prescribed sleeping pills.”
Rosales nodded.
“I know.”
My stomach twisted.
“How much?”
“Enough to suggest repeated dosing.”
I gripped the back of the chair.
For weeks, Lauren had told me Mom was fading.
For weeks, I had believed her.
Rosales continued.
“We also identified residue in the tablets from the sunroom cabinet.”
“Zolpidem?”
“Yes.”
I looked at my mother.
She stared at the ceiling.
One tear slid toward her ear.
“Lauren was drugging her.”
“We’re investigating that possibility.”
“No. She was.”
“Michael.”
Rosales’s tone stopped me.
“We need evidence, not conclusions.”
“Then get evidence.”
“We are.”
My phone buzzed again.
Same unknown number.
You should have listened.
Then a photograph appeared.
Lauren.
Standing beside a car in what looked like a parking garage.
The timestamp was forty minutes earlier.
My pulse jumped.
“She’s supposed to be with police.”
Rosales took the phone.
Her eyes narrowed.
“She was released pending further investigation.”
“You let her go?”
“There was not enough at that moment to hold her.”
Another photo arrived.
This one showed Lauren sitting in the passenger seat of a black SUV.
Beside her was a man.
Mid-forties.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
He was looking directly toward whoever took the photograph.
Underneath was one sentence.
Ask Daniel Vale why he married your wife before you did.
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
“What does that mean?” Rosales asked.
I didn’t answer.
I enlarged the image.
Lauren’s left hand was visible.
She wore no wedding ring.
Daniel’s hand rested on the steering wheel.
On his finger was a narrow silver band.
I had seen that ring before.
Not on him.
In a photograph.
An old photograph in Lauren’s college album.
There had been a man standing beside her on a beach, his face partly cut from the picture.
A silver ring had hung from a chain around Lauren’s neck.
She had told me it belonged to her dead cousin.
I stared at Daniel Vale’s hand.
May you like
And understood that Lauren’s lies reached back farther than our marriage.
Maybe even farther than the day we met.
