Chapter 9 - Vivienne’s Mother
Lauren Harrow died when Vivienne was sixteen.
Official cause.
Ruptured cerebral aneurysm.
Grant read the report three times.
The similarities were impossible to ignore.
Recurring headaches.
Treatment by Stephen Harrow.
Sudden collapse at home.
No criminal investigation.
Vivienne had found her mother.
At least according to the police report.
Grant stared at her sixteen-year-old statement.
“I heard something fall.”
“I went downstairs.”
“My mother was on the kitchen floor.”
“I called my father.”
“I did what he told me.”
Grant looked at Daniel.
“What did he tell her?”
“The report doesn’t say.”
The responding officer was retired.
Ortiz found him.
He remembered the case because Vivienne’s behavior had seemed unusual.
“She wasn’t crying.”
“She was extremely calm.”
“Shock happens.”
“But she kept asking whether her mother’s life insurance would pay for the funeral.”
Grant felt chilled.
At sixteen.
Daniel uncovered the policy.
Lauren Harrow carried two million dollars in life insurance.
Stephen received it.
That money funded Harrow Biotech.
Grant sat back.
The entire chain began with Lauren.
Maybe Harrow had discovered how easy a “natural” death could be.
Maybe Vivienne learned from him.
Or perhaps she had been manipulated from childhood.
Grant did not know which possibility was worse.
Tessa studied old photographs of Vivienne.
“Look.”
She enlarged one.
Vivienne at seventeen.
A bruise showed near her wrist.
Another photo showed a faint mark along her jaw.
Grant frowned.
“You think Harrow abused her?”
“I think we don’t know what he did.”
Grant resisted sympathy.
Vivienne had hurt Noah.
Whatever happened to her did not erase that.
But understanding how she became part of the scheme might help find her.
Ortiz agreed.
They examined relatives.
Schools.
Old friends.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Rachel Monroe.
Vivienne’s childhood best friend.
Rachel had not spoken to Vivienne in fourteen years.
She agreed to meet Ortiz.
Grant watched the recorded interview later.
Rachel looked nervous even now.
“Victoria was afraid of her father.”
“She never called him Dad when he wasn’t around.”
“She called him Doctor.”
Ortiz asked why.
Rachel shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“He controlled everything.”
“What she ate.”
“Who she saw.”
“What classes she took.”
“He said emotions were weakness.”
Grant thought of Vivienne’s perfect composure.
Rachel continued.
“After Lauren died, Victoria changed.”
“How?”
“She started acting like him.”
“Cold.”
“Calculated.”
“She said her mother had been stupid.”
Ortiz leaned forward.
“Why?”
Rachel’s eyes filled.
“She said Lauren tried to leave.”
Grant’s chest tightened.
“Leave Stephen?”
“Yes.”
“And Victoria said people who tried to leave him always paid.”
Ortiz asked.
“Did Victoria believe Stephen killed Lauren?”
Rachel looked toward the camera.
“She knew.”
The room became silent.
“How?”
Rachel swallowed.
“Because she helped.”
Grant stopped the recording.
Tessa whispered.
“She was sixteen.”
Grant pressed play again.
Rachel began crying.
“One night Victoria came to my house.”
“She said her father had made her switch her mother’s medication.”
“She said he told her it was only to make Lauren sleepy.”
“Then Lauren died.”
“Victoria wanted to tell the police.”
“What stopped her?”
“Stephen.”
“He told her if she talked, she would go to prison too.”
Grant understood.
Harrow turned his daughter into an accomplice.
Then held the crime over her head.
Rachel continued.
“A few months later, Victoria stopped being afraid.”
“She said something strange.”
“She said if everyone already believed she was a monster, maybe being one was easier.”
Grant felt no relief.
Only sadness mixed with disgust.
Vivienne had once been a frightened child.
Then she grew into an adult who frightened children.
The cycle explained her.
It did not absolve her.
Rachel provided one crucial detail.
Vivienne had a place she went when hiding from her father.
An abandoned lake cottage that belonged to her maternal grandparents.
Police located it.
The property had been sold years earlier.
But the current owner used it only seasonally.
Ortiz sent officers.
They found signs someone had recently stayed there.
Food.
Clothes.
A burner phone package.
Blood on a towel.
And a handwritten note.
Grant received a photograph.
The note read:
HE WILL KILL ME BEFORE HE LETS ME TALK.
Grant stared.
“Who is ‘he’?”
Tessa answered.
“Harrow.”
Maybe.
Or Adrian.
The cottage also contained newspapers about Grant.
Noah.
Elise.
Some were years old.
Vivienne had been following Grant’s family long before they officially met.
Then police found a locked wooden box beneath the bed.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
Most written by Lauren Harrow to her daughter.
The final letter was never sent.
Lauren wrote that she planned to leave Stephen.
She had discovered falsified research and illegal patient experiments.
She feared he had involved Adrian Vale.
She begged Victoria to come with her.
At the bottom, Lauren wrote one line.
IF I FAIL, DO NOT BECOME HIM.
Grant read it again.
Vivienne had kept that letter for eighteen years.
Tessa whispered.
“Part of her knew.”
Grant looked at her.
“Knew what?”
“What she became.”
Grant felt no pity capable of overriding what he saw on the camera.
But he understood why Vivienne might now be running from Harrow as much as police.
Then Ortiz called.
“We found another message.”
“From Vivienne?”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
“She sent a video.”
Grant opened the secure link.
Vivienne appeared in darkness.
Her face was bruised.
Her lower lip was split.
She looked exhausted.
Grant had never seen her without control.
“Grant.”
She looked directly into the camera.
“I know you hate me.”
“You should.”
Grant felt no satisfaction.
Vivienne continued.
“I hurt Noah.”
“I told myself I was preparing him.”
“I told myself fear would make him easier to control.”
“I heard my father saying the same things he said to me.”
“And I still did it.”
Tessa looked away.
Vivienne swallowed.
“I am not asking you to forgive me.”
“I am asking you to listen.”
She held up a flash drive.
“My father has records on everyone.”
“Not just Elise.”
“Judges.”
“Doctors.”
“Executors.”
“Police.”
“People he paid.”
“People Adrian blackmailed.”
Grant leaned closer.
Vivienne continued.
“You cannot arrest one person and think Noah is safe.”
“Adrian has copies of the trust documents.”
“He has access to identities prepared for Noah.”
Grant’s blood ran cold.
Identities?
Vivienne’s eyes filled.
“They planned to take him after you died.”
Tessa gasped.
Grant felt ice move through him.
Vivienne continued.
“Not kill him.”
“Raise him somewhere else until the trust matured.”
“Then control him.”
“I was supposed to be his legal guardian.”
Grant wanted to be sick.
Vivienne looked over her shoulder.
A sound occurred off-camera.
Her face changed.
She spoke faster.
“The evidence is hidden where my mother tried to save me.”
“Find the blue room.”
The video shook.
Vivienne whispered.
“Do not trust the detective with the silver watch.”
Then the recording ended abruptly.
Grant immediately looked toward Ortiz’s wrist.
Black watch.
Daniel wore none.
Grant thought through every detective he had met.
One name surfaced.
Detective Martin Shaw.
Silver metal watch.
He had been among the officers at Grant’s house.
He was also the officer who allowed Vivienne to go upstairs to the bathroom before she escaped.
Grant stared at Ortiz.
“You have a leak.”
Her expression hardened.
“Maybe.”
“Shaw.”
“I know.”
Ortiz immediately contacted internal affairs.
But Shaw was not at the station.
His car had disappeared.
His phone was off.
Grant felt the investigation widen again.
Harrow had police access.
Adrian had money.
Vivienne had been helped out of the house.
Then Daniel looked up from his computer.
“I found the blue room.”
Grant turned.
“Where?”
“Lauren Harrow’s family home.”
“The original one.”
“It still exists.”
“Who owns it?”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“A trust.”
“Whose trust?”
He turned the screen around.
Grant read the name.
Elise Mercer.
Grant stared.
“My wife owned Harrow’s family house?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She bought it six months before she died.”
Grant could not understand.
Then he found the transaction attorney.
Elise had purchased the property secretly.
Using her maiden name.
Why?
Tessa whispered.
“Maybe Lauren contacted her.”
Grant looked at her.
“Lauren died more than a decade before Elise.”
“Then maybe Vivienne did.”
Grant stared.
Vivienne had known Elise.
Not just watched her.
Known her.
The question was no longer when Vivienne entered Grant’s life.
May you like
It was why Elise had hidden her.
---
