Chapter 4 - The First Lie Wasn't Veronica's
Veronica finally sat down.
“I didn't know everything.”
“Start with what you did know.”
She looked toward Maisie.
“Not in front of her.”
That was the first reasonable thing she'd said.
Maisie stayed with a trusted hotel staff member and a child welfare advocate who had been called through proper channels.
Then Veronica talked.
Allan Hayes had treated Emily briefly.
Not as a dentist.
As a friend of Caleb's family.
Emily had damaged a tooth shortly before leaving home.
Allan repaired it.
After the crash, police contacted him because the dental work looked distinctive.
He provided records.
“Were they hers?”
“Yes.”
“Then whose body was in the car?”
Veronica closed her eyes.
“I don't know.”
“Did Allan?”
“I think so.”
My stomach turned.
“What did he do?”
“He changed the chart.”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Because Caleb came to him.”
Caleb.
The boyfriend I had despised.
According to Veronica, Caleb arrived at Allan's office terrified.
Emily was alive.
The burned car contained someone else.
An acquaintance who had borrowed the vehicle after Emily abandoned it at a motel.
The crash happened later.
Emily panicked.
She believed she could disappear.
Caleb convinced Allan to let authorities believe she was dead.
I stared at Veronica.
“Why would a nineteen-year-old do that?”
“She was afraid of you.”
The sentence hurt.
Then Veronica added:
“And someone else.”
“Who?”
She looked away.
“Your business partner.”
My chest tightened.
At the time, my partner was Frank Delaney.
Frank had been like a brother.
He died fourteen years ago.
“What did Frank have to do with Emily?”
Veronica hesitated.
“She saw something.”
“What?”
“I don't know exactly.”
That part sounded true.
Which meant the original deception hadn't been created to separate a rebellious daughter from an overbearing father.
May you like
Emily had vanished because she believed someone dangerous knew she had witnessed something.
And twenty-two years later, that fear had somehow reached Maisie.
