Chapter 10 - The email Vanessa feared
The properly obtained email thread included the subject:
MARA DRIVE.
Not because Vanessa knew the USB existed in Otis at first.
The earliest message was to her sister Brooke, six months after Mara’s death.
Vanessa:
I keep thinking Mara backed up those receipts somewhere.
Brooke:
Why do you care? You paid most of it back.
Vanessa:
Not all. And there were recordings.
Recordings.
My stomach tightened.
Brooke:
Of what?
Vanessa:
Nothing criminal. Her being dramatic about how I handled Noah.
Then:
She told me before the hospital that if anything happened to her, Ryan would find the backup eventually.
Brooke:
Then tell Ryan now before he finds it later.
Good advice.
Vanessa:
And say what? “Your dead wife thought I stole from you and hated how I disciplined your kid, want dinner?”
Months later, after Vanessa and I started dating:
I think the drive may have been in one of Mara’s keepsake boxes.
Then after we became engaged:
Ryan wants to give more of Mara’s things to Noah as he gets older. I need to know what she saved.
Brooke:
You are making this worse.
Vanessa:
I know.
Then three weeks before source day:
Noah keeps carrying that disgusting bear everywhere. Mara once said “Otis is better than iCloud.” I remembered it today.
There.
She suspected.
Brooke:
Do not cut open a child’s teddy because you’re afraid of a dead woman’s USB.
Vanessa:
I’m not.
She did.
Source day.
The emails did not prove cage use.
They proved why the bear scared her.
The cage had a related but broader history.
Control Noah.
Stop him running.
Punish refusal.
May you like
And on the final day:
Get the bear.
