Detective Beck’s pen moved.
“When?”
“Maybe two weeks ago. From Mom’s lawyer. Robert saw it.”
“Did he open it?”
“I don’t know.”
But there was something else I knew.
After that day, Robert had changed.
For forty-eight hours, he had been strangely nice. Flowers. Takeout food. His hand resting on my belly while he told Elias how much he looked forward to meeting him.
After the birth, he had become distant again.
I had thought he was overwhelmed.
Now I wondered if he had been coldly calculating.
Detective Beck stood up.
“I’ll be back soon. Get some rest for now. Don’t speak to Robert. Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. Hospital security has been notified.”
“Why do I need security?”
Her expression darkened.
“Because men like your husband sometimes get desperate when they realize the dead can still testify.”
The next morning, Robert found out I was alive.
Not from the police.
Not from me.
From Vanessa.
She had seen a post by a hospital employee in a local community group thanking the “Good Samaritan” who had “helped save a young mother in the postpartum period and her newborn in Grainau.” No names were mentioned, but the details were enough.
Robert called my cell phone fourteen times in ten minutes.
Then the text messages started.
Emma, oh my God. Where are you?
I thought something had happened.
Please call me.
The police are twisting everything.
I love you.
That last message made me laugh.
A dry, broken sound.
Niklas saw my face and took the phone out of my hand.
“Don’t read that.”
“But I want to read it.” “No, you don’t.”
But I did want to.
Not because I believed a single word.
But because every message showed me exactly what Robert was afraid of.
Around midday, he changed his strategy.
You know I didn’t realize how serious it was.
You told me beforehand that you were fine.
I hadn’t.
This could ruin my life. Please don’t do this to me.
There it was.
Not I almost lost you.
Not I let you down.
His life.
His ruin.
His fear.
Then a voice message came through.
Niklas didn’t want me to listen to it.
I did it anyway.
Robert’s voice filled the room, low and trembling.
“Emma, sweetheart, please. I’m losing my mind. I came home and saw the blood, and I thought you were dead. Do you know what that did to me? I couldn’t breathe. I know I messed up, okay? But you have to admit, you scared me too. You should have called someone else if it was that serious.”
Daniel, standing by the door, closed his eyes.
Robert went on.
“The cops are acting like I’m a monster. You know me. Tell them I didn’t know. Tell them we had an argument and I thought you were fine. We can fix this. We can still be a family.”
The message ended.
The room remained silent.
I looked down at Elias, who was sleeping in my arms.
Then I whispered, “No.”
That afternoon, Detective Beck returned with news.
Robert had been released while the investigation continued, but his passport had been flagged. His friends had already given statements. Two of them admitted that Robert had ignored repeated jokes from them asking if he shouldn’t “check on the missus.”
One friend had recorded a long video that Robert never posted.
In it, someone asked, “What if she really needs you?”
Robert had laughed.
“Then she’ll finally learn that not everything revolves around her.”
Detective Beck played only the audio track for me.
The room around me vanished at the sound of his voice.
That laugh.
That carefree, bright laugh.
I had once loved that sound. I had heard it on our first date, when he spilled wine on his shirt and made me laugh until my stomach hurt. I had heard it on our wedding day, when his best man forgot the rings. I had heard it when we saw Elias on an ultrasound for the first time.
Now, it sounded like a door clicking shut.
After Beck left, Daniel remained.
Niklas had gone to speak with the lawyer.
Elias lay in my arms, warm and breathing softly.
Daniel was standing by the window again, watching the snow gather on the sill.
“You’re so quiet,” I said.
He turned around.
“I didn’t want to pressure you.”
“You saved my life. I think you’re allowed to speak.”
A sad smile touched his lips.
I studied him.
“Why were you really in Garmisch?”
He looked down.
“Niklas told you. For work.”
“That’s not the whole truth.”
Daniel’s silence answered before his voice did.
Finally, he sat down.
“I moved back three months ago.”
I blinked.
“You live here?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were married. Pregnant. Building a life for yourself.”
Something in his voice made my chest ache.
“Daniel.”
He looked at Elias instead of me.
“Your mother called me before she died.”
“My mother?”
“She was worried about you.”
I furrowed my brow.
“Because of Robert?”
“She didn’t trust him.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“She told you that?”
“She told Niklas, too. But she asked me for something else as well.”
“For what?”
Daniel reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small, sealed envelope.
It was cream-colored.
My mother’s handwriting was visible on the front.
For Emma, when she is ready to see clearly.
My hand trembled as I took it.
I knew that handwriting as well as my own reflection.
For a long moment, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
Then I slid my finger under the flap.
Inside was a single letter.
My dearest Emma,
If you are reading this, it means I had reason to worry, and I am so sorry.
I watched as you made yourself smaller and smaller by Robert’s side. I saw you excuse acts of cruelty because they came cloaked in charm. I saw you mistake control for protection, and silence for peace.
You might be angry that I kept things from you. I did it because money changes the way some people view love.
Robert once asked me questions when you weren’t in the room. Too many questions. About what you would inherit. About whether a spouse has rights. About whether “family wealth” should remain private after marriage.
He smiled while he asked.
That smile frightened me.
So I changed everything.
The trust fund is for you and your child. It is protected. But protection on paper means nothing if you don’t protect your life.
Trust Niklas.
Trust Daniel.
And when the day comes that Robert shows you who he really is, don’t make excuses for him.
Run away.
Mom
By the time I finished reading, tears had dripped onto the page.
Daniel sat completely motionless.
“She knew,” I whispered.
“She suspected.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She tried.”
I thought back to the last few months of her life.
The way she had gently asked, “Are you happy, sweetheart?”
The way I had answered far too quickly.
The way she had watched Robert across the kitchen table—not cruelly, but with the quiet focus of a woman who had survived enough in life to recognize danger before it even raised its voice.
I pressed the letter against my chest.
Then I looked at Daniel.
“What else did she ask you?”
He hesitated.
“She asked me to keep an eye on you from afar.”
My heart gave a hard jolt.
“What does that mean?”
“She knew you wouldn’t accept help if you thought we were interfering. So she asked me to stay close enough for Niklas to call me if things got dicey.”
“You were watching me?”
“No.” His answer was immediate. “Not like that. I respected your privacy. But yes, I stayed within reach. I coordinated with Niklas. I drove by once after Elias was born, but I didn’t stop.”
“When?”
“Two days before Robert left.”
I remembered that day.
A black pickup truck in front of the house.
I had been standing at the window with Elias in my arms—exhausted and ashamed of the state I was in—and Robert had snapped at me to close the curtains.
I hadn’t thought anything of it.
Now I wondered what Robert had been thinking.
Before I could ask, the door opened.
Niklas walked in, his face pale.
He looked at Daniel.
Then at me.
“The lawyer found something.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
Niklas held up his phone.
“Mom’s firm sent the trust fund documents to your house by courier two weeks ago. Someone signed for the delivery.”
“Robert,” I said.
Niklas nodded.
“And there’s a security camera photo of the handover.”
He turned the screen toward me.
There was Robert on our porch, smiling at the courier as he signed the tablet.
In his left hand, he was holding the thick envelope.
The very same one he later claimed to know nothing about.
“He knew,” I said.
Niklas’s voice was grim.
“He knew enough.” That evening, the hospital moved me to a private room under a different name in the system.
Security guards were stationed by the elevators.
I hated that it was necessary.
I hated that my son’s first days of life consisted of locked doors, police reports, and whispered conversations outside hospital rooms.
But the fear that had once lived inside me changed shape.
It turned into something sharper.
Robert arrived shortly after visiting hours ended.
I didn’t see him at first.
I heard the commotion.
Raised voices near the nurses’ station.
A man insisting he was my husband.
Security telling him to leave.
Then his voice—raw and desperate.
“Emma! I know you can hear me!”
My whole body went ice-cold.
Elias stirred in the bassinet beside me.
Niklas moved toward the door, but Daniel was already there.
“Don’t,” I said.
Both men turned to look at me.
“I want to hear him.”
Niklas’s jaw tightened.
Robert’s voice echoed down the hallway.
“Emma, please! They’re lying to you! Vanessa means nothing to me. I was scared. I handled it the wrong way, okay? But you can’t keep my son from me!”
My son.
Not our son.
The words landed exactly where they were meant to.
A nurse walked in and closed the door, muffling his voice.
“Security is taking him out,” she said.
But before Robert was dragged away, he shouted one last sentence.
A sentence that sucked all the air out of the room.
“Ask Daniel why he was really at the house!”
The nurse froze.
Niklas turned around slowly.
All the color drained from Daniel’s face.
I looked at him.
“What does he mean?”
Daniel said nothing.
My heartbeat began to hammer against the monitors.
“Daniel.”
Niklas stepped forward.
“Emma, not now.”
“No.” My voice was weak but firm. “Now.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he looked like a man standing at the edge of a cliff he had always known was there.
“I didn’t just come because Niklas called,” he said.
The room seemed to spin.
“What?”
He swallowed.
“I was already nearby.”
“Why?”
“Because Robert called me that morning.”
My breath caught.
“Robert called you?”
Daniel nodded once.
“He didn’t know that Niklas and I were still in close contact. He thought I was just someone from your past. He asked to meet. Said he wanted advice on how to deal with an ‘unstable wife’ before filing for divorce.”
The words slowly sank in, each one colder than the last.
“You met with him?” “No. I told him I wasn’t interested. But something about the call felt wrong. Then Niklas called a few hours later and said he couldn’t reach you. That’s why I got here so fast.”
I stared at him.
“Why didn’t you tell the police that?”
“I did.”
Detective Beck’s name flashed through my mind.
The looks.
The silence.
They had known.
“What else?” I asked.
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Robert said something on the phone.”
“What?”
Daniel looked at Niklas, then back at me.
“He said, ‘By next week, Emma won’t be a problem anymore.’”
The room fell deathly silent.
Elias made a tiny sound in his sleep.
I felt my mother’s letter beneath my hand.
And when the day comes that Robert shows you who he really is, don’t make excuses for him.
Outside, somewhere beyond the hospital walls, Robert Schneider was still at large.
But now I grasped the true horror of it.
He hadn’t just abandoned me.
He might well have been waiting for me not to survive.
And just as this realization washed over me, Detective Beck appeared in the doorway.
Her face was stern.
“Emma,” she said, “we found something in Robert’s car.”
Niklas stood up.
“What?”
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
“A small vial of a medical sedative. Empty.”
My blood ran cold.
“I was never given a sedative at home,” I whispered.
Detective Beck’s eyes locked onto mine.
“We know.”
Then she opened her folder and placed a photograph on my blanket.
It showed a tiny puncture mark on the inside of my arm.
A mark I hadn’t noticed.
A mark hidden beneath bruises and the IV bandage.
Detective Beck spoke softly.
“Emma, we no longer believe that Robert simply left you there to die.”
She paused.
“We believe he made sure you couldn’t call for help before he walked out the door.”
And at that exact moment, my phone lit up on the nightstand.
A withheld number.
A new message.
Niklas grabbed it before I could.
His expression changed as he read it aloud.
You should have stayed dead. PART 3 — The Message from a Dead Man’s Wife
For a breathtaking moment, no one moved.
The hospital room seemed to contract around that message, the walls drawing in close enough to touch. The monitors beside my bed kept beeping steadily and indifferently, while Niklas stood frozen, my phone in his hand.
You should have stayed dead.
Four words.
Four words that shattered every excuse Robert had ever hidden behind.
My brother’s face had gone chalk-white with rage. Daniel stood close to the door, shoulders squared, his gaze fixed so intently on the phone that it seemed he could tear the sender apart just by staring.
Detective Beck was the only one who remained calm.
But her calm had changed.
It was no longer professional detachment.
It was intense concentration.
“Don’t delete it,” she said.
Niklas carefully handed her the phone.
“Can you trace it?” he asked.
“We’ll try.” Her voice was low. “Withheld numbers are rarely as anonymous as people think.”
I looked at Elias, who was sleeping beside me. His tiny mouth moved in a dream; his small fists were tucked beneath his chin. He was so small, so innocent, wrapped in hospital cotton, while the adults around him whispered about sedatives, inheritance, betrayal, and death.
Something deep inside me hardened.
Robert hadn’t just abandoned me.
He had turned the first days of my son’s life into a piece of evidence.
Detective Beck looked at me. “Emma, I have to ask you an unpleasant question.”
I almost laughed. “I think we passed the ‘uncomfortable’ stage quite a while ago.”
“Before Robert left that morning, did he give you anything? Water? Medicine? Tea? Anything you didn’t prepare yourself?”
My mind groped slowly through the fog of memory.
The nursery. Elias crying. My aching body. Robert standing in the hallway, wearing his expensive sweater and an air of expensive indifference.
Then another image came back.
Robert by the kitchen counter, a glass in his hand.
I had been sitting on the sofa, nursing Elias, feeling weak and dazed.
“You look terrible,” he had said.
Not with concern.
But as if my suffering irritated him.
He had handed me water and two pills.
“For the cramps,” he had said. “Maybe you’ll stop making that face if you take them.”
I had been too exhausted to fight him.
I had swallowed them.
My throat tightened.
“Yes,” I whispered. “He gave me pills.”
Niklas swore softly under his breath.
Detective Beck’s pen glided across her notebook. “Do you know what kind of pills they were?”
“I thought it was ibuprofen.”
“Did you see the package?”
“No.”
Daniel turned toward the window, a hand over his mouth.
For the first time, I saw guilt on his face.
Not because he had done anything wrong.
But because, even though he had reached me in time, he still believed he had arrived too late to save the woman I had been before that morning.
Detective Beck leaned closer. “Emma, your blood work showed sedatives in your system. The doctors initially assumed they came from the emergency treatment, but the timing didn’t add up. After we found the vial in Robert’s car, we asked toxicology to double-check everything.”
My heart began to race.
“What did they find?”
“A drug commonly used in clinical settings. Potent enough to cause confusion, weakness, and unconsciousness—especially in someone who is already medically unstable.”
I could barely catch my breath.
“So when I collapsed…”
“You might not have fallen solely because of the blood loss.”
The room blurred before my eyes.
I remembered reaching for my phone.
How my legs gave way.
How my hand dragged across the carpet.
Elias, crying.
Robert’s social media video glowing on my screen.
His whiskey glass sparkling in the mountain sun.
Happy birthday to me.
My voice sounded completely hollow. “He drugged me.”
Detective Beck didn’t sugarcoat it. “That’s what we suspect.”
Niklas walked over to the wall and pressed both hands against it, bowing his head as if trying to keep from losing his composure. Daniel looked at me with such raw pain that witnessing it was almost unbearable.
But I didn’t cry.
Not now.
Tears belonged to the woman who had begged Robert not to leave.
That woman had bled to death on the nursery carpet.
The woman lying in the hospital bed was someone else.
“Where is he now?” I asked.
Detective Beck’s expression hardened. “We’re looking for him.”
My body went cold. “You don’t know?”
“He left his apartment before the officers arrived to question him again. His phone is switched off. His car was found two blocks from his lawyer’s office.”
Niklas spun around. “So he’s gone.”
“For now,” Beck said. “But he has no passport, no access to several frozen accounts, and every airport in the country has his name on a list.”
“Desperate men don’t always run far,” Daniel said quietly.
Detective Beck looked at him.
Something passed silently between them.
That wordless exchange again—the one I was beginning to hate.
“What is it?” I asked.
Daniel hesitated.
Beck answered instead.
“Robert might try to reach you. Not because he wants to ask for forgiveness. But because he needs to control the narrative.”
The words sank in.
Robert had always controlled the narrative.
At parties, he was the charming husband who joked that pregnancy had made me “emotional.” At dinner, he told people I’d been “forgetful lately.” When I cried after my mother’s death, he said grief had made me unstable. When I questioned his late nights with Vanessa, he said I was jealous.
He had spent months conditioning people not to believe me.
But he had made a mistake.
He thought I was too weak to survive the truth. The next morning, I signed the first legal documents from my hospital bed.
Not the paperwork for the trust fund yet.
That would come later.
These were protective orders. Papers for the emergency protection proceedings. Statements for the investigators. Medical release forms.
My signature looked shaky and unfamiliar.
Niklas sat beside me while I signed, his jaw clenched so tightly I worried he might break a tooth.
“You don’t have to read every page today,” he said.
“Yes, I do.”
“You just had emergency surgery.”
“And apparently survived an attempted murder.”
He flinched.
I regretted saying it so bluntly, but I didn’t take it back.
There was power in calling things by their true names.
For far too long, I had labeled cruelty as stress.
I had labeled neglect as exhaustion.
I had labeled control as love.
Never again.
Late in the afternoon, Detective Beck returned, accompanied by another woman.
She was elegant—perhaps in her late fifties—dressed in a charcoal-grey coat and pearl earrings. Her silver-blonde hair was neatly pinned up at the nape of her neck, and she carried a leather portfolio as if it held a weapon.
“Emma,” Beck said, “this is Margarete Voigt. She was your mother’s lawyer.”
The woman’s eyes softened as she looked at me.
“My dear,” she said. “Your mother loved you very much.”
That was all it took.
My composure began to crack.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just one tear, then another. For beneath all the fear, beneath all the anger, beneath the police reports and hospital alerts, I was still a daughter longing for her mother.
Margarete sat down by my bed and opened the folder.
“I wish we were meeting under different circumstances,” she said. “But your mother prepared for this possibility.”
“My mother prepared for the possibility that Robert would try to kill me?”
Margarete’s expression hardened. “Your mother prepared for the possibility that Robert would try to exploit you.”
“She knew that much?”
“She knew enough.” Margarete pulled out a document. “Three months before she died, Robert visited my office without you.”
My breath caught in my throat.
Niklas sat up straighter. “What?”
“He claimed he wanted to help settle Emma’s affairs before the baby arrived. He asked if an inheritance received during the marriage would count as marital assets. He asked if a spouse could act on behalf of a wife who lacked legal capacity. He asked what would happen if a beneficiary died before the final acceptance of the trust fund.”
A deathly silence fell over the room.
Daniel’s eyes darkened.
I could hear Elias breathing softly beside me.
Margarete continued, her words precise. “I refused to discuss your mother’s assets with him. The next day, your mother came in and changed everything.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I asked.
Margarete’s gaze remained gentle but firm. “Because you were defending him back then. Your mother feared that Robert would only isolate you further if she confronted you too directly about it.”
I looked down.
Shame rose within me like a wave of heat.
“I should have seen it.”
“No,” Daniel said.
His voice was so sharp that everyone turned toward him.
He stepped closer, his eyes burning. “No, Emma. He worked very hard to ensure you didn’t.” Something inside me cracked open.
Because it was true.
Robert hadn’t become dangerous overnight.
He had taught me to doubt myself—through one small humiliation after another.
Margarete placed a final envelope on my blanket.
“This was your mother’s private instruction to me. It was to be opened only if Robert made legal claims against your assets or if your life appeared to be in danger.”
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a short, handwritten note.
Emma, my darling,
if Robert ever demands what belongs to you after hurting you, give him exactly what he deserves:
Nothing.
And remember the cabin.
Mom
I furrowed my brow.
“The cabin?”
Niklas looked confused, too.
“Which cabin?” he asked.
Margarete reached into the folder and pulled out an old photograph.
It showed a small blue cabin by a lake, surrounded by pine trees and golden grass. A woman stood on the porch, holding a baby in her arms.
My mother.
And the baby was me.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Margarete gave a faint smile.
“Your mother owned a piece of land in Tegernsee. It wasn’t in the trust fund. It wasn’t listed in the documents Robert saw. She’d acquired it decades ago under her maiden name.”
Niklas blinked. “Mom had a cabin?”
“More than just a cabin,” Margarete said. “Sixteen hectares, mineral rights, and lake access. Thanks to recent developments in the region, the land is worth significantly more than anyone would have expected.”
“How much more?” Daniel asked.
Margarete looked at me.
“Almost twelve million euros.”
My mouth fell open.
Niklas whispered, “Good God.”
But Margarete wasn’t finished yet.
“Your mother left it entirely to Elias.”
I turned toward my sleeping son.
The world seemed to be spinning again, but differently this time.
Not with terror.
But with possibilities.
“My baby owns an estate in the mountains?” I said in a faint voice.
Margarete gave me a small smile. “When he turns twenty-five, yes. Until then, you are the sole guardian and trustee.”
Niklas let out a short, incredulous laugh.
Daniel exhaled—a sound that was almost like relief.
But Detective Beck’s face remained serious.
“Did Robert know about this estate?” she asked.
Margarete shook her head. “No. Only Elisabeth, myself, and now Emma knew about it.”
I touched Elias’s blanket.
For days, I had believed Robert’s betrayal had taken everything from me.
Now I realized that long before I knew I would need a way out, my mother had built a secret door into the wall.
She hadn’t just left me money.
She had left me a future that Robert couldn’t reach.
That night, after everyone had left and the room fell silent, Daniel stayed.
He sat on the chair beside my bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped.
“You should sleep,” he said.
“You too.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look terrible.”
He gave a faint smile. “Still charming, Parker.”
The old nickname made my chest ache.
For a second, we were young again. Me at twenty-two, carrying boxes into my first apartment. Daniel laughing while my brother grumbled about the stairs. Life before Robert. Life before I learned to apologize for taking up space.
“Daniel,” I said softly.
He looked at me.
“Why did Reiner call you?”
His smile vanished.
“I’ve been wondering that myself.”
“He probably thought you were insignificant.”
“Probably.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Reiner never wasted his energy on people who were insignificant to him.”
Daniel lowered his gaze.
Something tightened in my chest.
“What are you keeping from me?”
He remained silent for so long that I thought he was going to refuse to answer.
Then he said, “Reiner knew that I once loved you.”
The room fell dead silent.
My breath caught in my throat.
Once.
The word hung between us like a match beside dry tinder.
“You never told me that,” I whispered.
“You were Niklas’s little sister, after all.”
“I was twenty-two.”
“And I was thirty.” He gave a sad smile. “It felt complicated.”
I stared at him, mentally retracing every kind gesture I had dismissed back then as mere friendship. Every time he’d been there for me. Every time he’d taken a step back.
“Does Niklas know?”
“Of course Niklas knows. He threatened to throw me in front of a train if I ever hurt you.”
Despite everything, I had to laugh.
It hurt my surgical stitches, but I laughed.
Daniel’s expression softened.
Then the atmosphere in the room shifted. His expression changed.
Protective.
Alarmed.
He stood up abruptly.
“What is it?” I asked.
He walked to the door and looked through the narrow viewing window.
The hallway outside was dim.
Silent.
Too silent.
Then his phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen, and all the color drained from his face.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He turned the phone toward me.
A photo had been sent from an unknown number.
It showed the hospital corridor right outside my room.
Taken from just a few meters away.
Beneath it were five words:
Tell Emma I’m coming up.
PART 4 — The Man in the Hospital Corridor
Daniel hit the emergency call button before I could even catch my breath.
Within seconds, the room erupted in a flurry of activity.
A nurse rushed in. Then hospital security appeared. Finally, the police officer Detective Beck had stationed in the hallway stepped in, his hand already on his radio.
Daniel showed them the message.
The situation changed instantly.
Benjamin’s crib was pushed behind my bed. The blinds were yanked shut. A guard searched the bathroom, then the closet, as if Reiner could have been hiding in the darkness.
I lay motionless, every nerve in my body screaming.
Not because I thought Reiner was brave.
But because I knew he was cornered.
Men who had built their entire lives on control, only to be driven into a corner—they were the most dangerous kind of people.
Detective Beck arrived twelve minutes later; she was still wearing her coat, snow melting in her hair.
She wasted no time.
“The hospital lockdown for this floor is in effect,” she said. “They’re reviewing the camera footage. Emma, did Reiner ever use disguises? Fake IDs? Anything like that?”
“No.”
Daniel answered at the same moment: “He uses people.”
Beck looked at him.
Daniel’s jaw tightened. “He wouldn’t walk in here himself if he could send someone else.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when Detective Beck’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“Show me that,” she said, stepping out into the hallway.
Niklas arrived just moments later, out of breath and looking wild-eyed.
“I came straight here when Daniel called.”
I had never seen my brother so close to losing it. His whole body seemed charged with nervous energy.
“Where is he?” Niklas demanded.
“Not here,” Daniel said. “Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
Detective Beck returned before Daniel could answer.
“It wasn’t Reiner,” she said.
My heart gave a violent jolt.
“Who was it?”
Beck held up a tablet. The screen showed surveillance footage from twenty minutes earlier.
A woman was moving through the hallway; she was wearing a visitor’s badge and a long, beige wool coat. Her dark hair was hidden beneath a knit hat, and large sunglasses obscured half her face.
Despite the grainy footage, I recognized her instantly.
Vanessa.
Reiner’s advisor.
Reiner’s mistress.
The woman who had urged him to ignore me.
I felt sick.
“She sent the message?” Niklas asked.
“We think so,” Beck said. “She signed in under a false name and left the building via the east stairwell three minutes before the lockdown.”
Daniel’s face hardened. “So Reiner sent her.”
“Maybe,” Beck said. “Or she was here for her own reasons.”
“What possible reasons could she have?” I asked.
Detective Beck looked at me intently. “Vanessa Grant isn’t who Reiner thinks she is.”
Silence fell.
Even Benjamin seemed to go completely still.
“What does that mean?” I whispered.
Beck placed the tablet on the rolling bedside table next to my bed and opened a different file.
“Vanessa Grant is an official name she’s only been using for four years. Before that, her name was Vanessa Heise.”
Niklas frowned. “Should that mean something to us?”
“It certainly should to Reiner’s father.”
