Chapter 6 - Rehearsal.
Reese did not play the memory card in Elena's hospital room.
He took her to a secure consultation area downstairs where two investigators were already waiting.
The video began without sound.
Vanessa stood at the top of the Howard staircase wearing jeans and a black sweater.
The date stamp showed four nights earlier.
She looked over both shoulders before placing a dining chair near the landing.
Then she set a throw pillow on the steps.
Elena watched Vanessa step forward, turn sharply, and throw both hands outward.
Again.
Then again.
On the fourth attempt, Vanessa spoke.
"She came at me."
She tried the line a second time with more fear in her voice.
"She came at me first."
Elena's stomach tightened.
The performance on the staircase had not been spontaneous.
Vanessa had practiced it.
Reese paused the video.
"Thomas recorded this from the service hall."
"Why didn't he come to me?"
"We think he was scared."
Elena looked at the frozen image of Vanessa.
"Of Adrian?"
Reese resumed the video.
A man entered the frame from the corridor.
Only his arm and part of his suit were visible.
Vanessa immediately stopped rehearsing.
"Is that enough?"
The man answered.
"Only if she falls far enough."
Elena gripped the edge of the table.
She recognized the voice.
Adrian.
Vanessa looked down the staircase.
"What if she loses the baby?"
Adrian's answer came without hesitation.
"Then the problem solves itself."
The room became unbearably quiet.
Elena did not cry.
She simply stared at the screen as the man she had married reduced their unborn child to a problem.
Reese stopped the recording.
"We need to authenticate the file."
"Until then, Adrian's attorney will call it manipulated."
Elena nodded, but her hands would not stop trembling.
"Where is Thomas?"
"We still don't know."
An investigator handed Reese another report.
He scanned it quickly.
"We found his blood type in the cabinet."
Elena closed her eyes.
"Is it enough to know he's dead?"
"No."
"And I won't assume that without a body."
A phone rang on the desk.
One investigator answered, listened, then looked at Reese.
"We have a bank withdrawal."
Reese took the receiver.
"Whose account?"
The investigator lowered his voice.
"Thomas Vale's."
Elena looked up.
Reese listened for several seconds.
"When?"
He ended the call.
"Twenty minutes ago."
"Where?"
"A highway rest stop sixty miles north."
Hope flickered across Elena's face.
Reese shook his head.
"The security image doesn't show Thomas."
"It shows Vanessa."
Vanessa had Thomas's bank card.
And suddenly the missing assistant no longer looked like a witness who had simply run away.
Elena asked to hear Adrian's sentence again.
Reese replayed the moment when Adrian said the problem would solve itself.
This time Elena listened not as a wife but as a witness.
There was no anger in his voice.
That frightened her more than rage would have.
He sounded administrative, as though discussing a canceled contract.
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Elena placed one hand over her stomach.
Whatever happened next, she promised herself that her child would never grow up believing cruelty was the price of belonging to a powerful family.
