Chapter 23 - THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK
Vanessa asked to speak from custody.
Her face was bruised from the fire. Without expensive clothes and perfect lighting, she looked less like a mastermind than a woman who had spent years running downhill.
She admitted taking the ledger from the archive while Voss confronted Daniel.
“Where is it?” Ruiz asked.
“Safe.”
“Nothing near you is safe,” Daniel said.
Vanessa revealed that her mother had worked for Robert Carter. After discovering illegal payments, she was forced into silence and died believing no one would expose him. Vanessa married Daniel partly to reach the family records.
“Was any of our marriage real?” he asked.
She looked through the glass at Lily's photograph in his wallet.
“The worst part is that most of it was.”
She had joined Elliot to punish the Carter family, then stayed because stolen money began to feel like justice. When Claire uncovered the scheme, Vanessa pushed her during the struggle.
“I did not plan her death,” Vanessa whispered.
“You planned every lie after it.”
Vanessa closed her eyes. “Yes.”
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She offered the ledger in exchange for protection for Lily.
The handoff location was the Carter family mausoleum.
