Chapter 6 - Vanessa Knew About Laura
Vanessa was located twelve hours later.
Margaret wasn’t with her.
Vanessa agreed to talk.
Ryan walked into the interview room furious.
“You knew.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“About Laura?”
“About Emma.”
Vanessa’s face broke.
“Yes.”
Ryan sat down slowly.
“When?”
“Before Daniel died.”
Silence.
Vanessa explained.
Daniel had an affair with Laura.
It lasted eight months.
He ended it.
Then Laura told him she was pregnant.
Daniel wanted to acknowledge the baby privately until he could tell Vanessa.
Vanessa discovered everything first.
She confronted him.
They separated temporarily.
Then Daniel died in the boating accident.
Ryan remembered.
Daniel had been alone.
No suspicious circumstances had ever been found.
Vanessa continued.
After his death, Laura contacted Margaret at St. Matthew’s.
Why Margaret?
Daniel had once asked Margaret for help arranging confidential paternity testing.
Margaret knew about the pregnancy.
Then Thomas Carter’s trust provision surfaced.
Emma stood to inherit Daniel’s shares.
Vanessa would lose much of the financial control she expected after Daniel’s death.
Ryan stared.
“So you and Margaret hid her?”
Vanessa started crying.
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I agreed to delay the paternity filing.”
“That’s hiding her.”
“Yes.”
But Vanessa claimed Margaret escalated everything.
Laura refused to surrender Emma’s rights.
Margaret began manipulating hospital records.
Vanessa withdrew.
Then Laura died.
“What happened to Emma?”
Vanessa looked sick.
“Margaret told me Laura’s sister took her.”
“She did.”
“Then months later Margaret said Emma had died.”
“You believed her?”
“I wanted to.”
That answer disgusted Ryan.
Vanessa looked at him.
“I knew enough not to ask.”
Ryan stood.
“That’s almost worse.”
Vanessa nodded.
“I know.”
She then revealed why Margaret met her before disappearing.
Margaret wanted money.
Cash.
A new identity.
Vanessa refused.
Margaret threatened to expose Vanessa’s role in delaying Emma’s paternity acknowledgment.
“So where is Margaret now?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa handed over her phone.
The last message Margaret sent read:
IF EMMA TALKS, THEY’LL FIND DANIEL’S SECOND FILE.
Ryan frowned.
“What second file?”
Vanessa went pale.
Daniel kept two sets of records.
One for the affair.
Another for Carter Holdings.
Before he died, he had been investigating Margaret.
Ryan stared.
“Why?”
Daniel suspected she was manipulating trust distributions even then.
Laura had helped him copy financial files.
That meant Laura wasn’t just Daniel’s affair partner.
She was also a witness.
Ryan’s stomach turned.
Then Vanessa said:
“Daniel gave Laura something before he died.”
“What?”
“A red flash drive.”
Ryan thought of Emma.
The little girl had arrived clutching nothing.
But Ethan had been feeding her through the vent.
Pieces of bread.
A stuffed toy?
No.
Ryan suddenly remembered.
When Emma was rescued, she had been holding a tiny cloth pouch under her pajama top.
Police had logged it with her belongings.
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Inside was a red flash drive.
👉 Emma hadn’t arrived at Ryan’s house empty-handed—she had been carrying the financial evidence Daniel and Laura both died trying to preserve.
