Chapter 13 — The Last Accomplice
Police searched the property.
No fingerprints were found on the veil.
The handwriting did not match Sophia, Richard, Adrian, or Dr. Wells.
Lucas moved Emily to a secure location.
Detective Morris reviewed every wedding employee, vendor, guest, and family member.
Then Claire remembered something.
“The wedding planner.”
Her name was Vanessa Reed.
She had disappeared after the ceremony.
Records showed no legitimate business license.
Her identity was false.
Security footage revealed Vanessa entering the bridal suite several times.
In one recording, she carried the silver medical case.
She had also reserved the plane tickets to Switzerland.
Lucas recognized her from an old company photograph.
Vanessa had worked for Bennett Medical ten years earlier.
She had been fired after an internal investigation into missing narcotics.
Adrian had led that investigation.
But instead of reporting her, he had recruited her.
Police traced Vanessa to a rural motel.
She was gone by the time they arrived.
On the bathroom mirror, she had written:
THE GIRL KNOWS WHERE IT IS.
Lucas asked Emily what Vanessa meant.
The child became quiet.
“Sweetheart, did she give you something?”
Emily hesitated.
“At the wedding, she told me to hide a little black thing.”
“What little black thing?”
Emily opened the repaired stuffed rabbit.
Inside was a memory card.
Vanessa had hidden it there before Sophia discovered Emily in the bridal suite.
The card contained video files documenting years of crimes committed by Richard, Adrian, Dr. Wells, and Vanessa herself.
It was insurance.
Enough to convict everyone.
But the final video showed something else.
Vanessa stood beside Richard in a hospital room.
A woman lay unconscious in the bed.
Lucas recognized her.
His late wife.
Emily’s mother, Anna.
Anna had supposedly died from complications after surgery.
In the video, Richard handed Vanessa a syringe.
Lucas could barely breathe.
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Sophia’s family had not entered his life at the wedding.
They had been there from the beginning.
