Chapter 6 - THE CRASH THAT NEVER HAPPENED
Vanessa locked the drawing room door behind her.
“My mother told everyone Anna Bennett died instantly.”
Claire stepped closer.
“What actually happened?”
Vanessa’s hands shook.
“I was twelve.”
“That night, I heard my mother arguing with a man downstairs.”
“What man?”
“I never knew his name.”
Vanessa swallowed.
“She kept saying Anna had taken something.”
Claire glanced at the black key from the safe.
“What did she take?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa continued.
“The next morning, there was a crash on Route Seven.”
“A woman’s car burned.”
“Your mother’s purse and identification were inside.”
Claire felt sick.
“But?”
“But I saw Anna three days later.”
Ethan stared at Vanessa.
“Where?”
“In our basement.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Vanessa’s voice broke.
“She was alive.”
Claire moved toward her so quickly Ethan caught her arm.
“My mother was here?”
Vanessa nodded.
“She was injured.”
“She was crying.”
“She begged me to call the police.”
Claire’s eyes burned.
“Did you?”
“I was twelve.”
Vanessa began crying.
“My mother found me.”
“What did Eleanor do?”
“She told me Anna was dangerous.”
“She said Anna was trying to kidnap me.”
Claire shook her head.
“You believed her?”
“At first.”
Vanessa wiped her eyes.
“Then Anna looked at me and said something I never forgot.”
“What?”
“She said, ‘Tell Claire I tried to come home.’”
Claire turned away.
For eleven years she had believed her mother was dead.
She had graduated alone.
Moved alone.
Struggled alone.
Grieved alone.
And her mother might have been alive.
“What happened after that?”
Claire asked.
Vanessa shook her head.
“I never saw her again.”
Ethan looked at the black key.
“Maybe this tells us.”
Claire examined it.
A tiny number was engraved into the metal.
214.
Ethan frowned.
“That looks like a locker key.”
Vanessa suddenly went pale.
“What?”
Ethan asked.
Vanessa stared at the number.
“Our family used to own private storage vaults at Union Central Station.”
Claire looked at the key again.
“Is vault 214 still there?”
May you like
Vanessa nodded slowly.
“If my mother didn’t have it destroyed.”
