Chapter 3 - THE DEAD WOMAN
I called the number back.
Disconnected.
Rachel stood beside my desk.
“That was Claire?”
“Yes.”
“You're certain?”
I wanted to say absolutely.
Then I remembered the death certificate.
“I know her voice.”
That was different from proof.
The children needed me more than the mystery did.
Their pediatrician documented Lily's redness and Noah's bruise. Noah told the clinician Vanessa had struck him earlier when he tried stopping her from grabbing Lily.
I listened from across the room.
I didn't interrupt.
Every sentence made my jaw tighten.
Afterward, the appropriate child-protection report was made.
Vanessa texted me once.
YOU'RE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE.
I saved it.
No response.
Then Rachel and I began checking the documents.
The death certificate contained a state file number.
It was real.
That was the first shock.
A Claire Elizabeth Carter had died fourteen months earlier.
Same full name.
Same birth date.
Same previous address.
My address.
Cause of death was listed as complications following a motor-vehicle collision.
But the identification section contained something strange.
The decedent had been identified through documentation supplied by:
Spouse.
Daniel Carter.
I had never identified a body.
Never signed anything.
Never attended a funeral.
Rachel stared at the record.
“Someone used your identity.”
The insurance claim was more disturbing.
It had been submitted electronically eleven months earlier.
Three weeks after Vanessa moved into my home.
The insurer had rejected it pending additional identity verification.
I had never known.
The forged claim sought $2.2 million.
Payment would have gone into an account supposedly belonging to me.
It wasn't mine.
We contacted my attorney, Rebecca Sloan.
Rebecca told me not to assume the certificate itself was fraudulent merely because information supporting it might have been false.
“We verify each link.”
That became the rule.
The official death record existed.
The insurance claim existed.
My signature appeared on documents I hadn't signed.
But none of that proved Claire was dead.
Then Rebecca asked:
“Who introduced you to Vanessa?”
I hesitated.
Claire had.
Vanessa wasn't some stranger who arrived after my wife disappeared.
She had been Claire's closest friend.
Vanessa was inside our house constantly during Lily's pregnancy.
After Claire vanished, Vanessa helped with Noah.
Helped with Lily.
Helped me survive.
Eight months later, I married her.
The realization made me nauseated.
Rebecca requested the available insurance records.
One attachment contained a scan of my driver's license.
Another contained a photograph of the deceased woman.
The face was badly injured, but visible.
Rachel covered her mouth.
The woman looked enough like Claire to fool a stranger.
But I saw the difference.
A small scar above the eyebrow.
Claire never had one.
Vanessa did.
And suddenly I understood why Vanessa had gone pale when Lily mentioned the papers.
The dead woman might not have been Claire.
May you like
But someone had wanted authorities to believe she was.
📖 The body wasn't Claire, yet the woman in the identification photograph carried a detail connected to Vanessa—and finding her real identity would expose the first layer of the deception. 👇
