Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN IN ROOM 317The psychiatric facility sat behind cedar trees in northern New Jersey.
From the road it looked more like a private resort than a hospital.
Agent Hale did not allow Dominic or me inside immediately.
Victoria had been admitted under the name Eleanor Ward.
Her records claimed she suffered from delusions, paranoia, and memory disturbances.
The psychiatrist listed as admitting physician did not exist.
The address on Dominic’s supposed authorization form led to an abandoned warehouse.
Someone had constructed an elaborate hiding place.
For Victoria.
Or a prison.
When investigators finally questioned her, Victoria demanded to see one person.
Me.
Dominic objected immediately.
“No.”
Agent Hale looked at him.
“It’s Claire’s decision.”
Dominic turned to me.
“She attacked you.”
“I remember.”
“You don’t owe her anything.”
“I’m not going for her.”
He knew what I meant.
I wanted answers about Dad.
We entered together, but only I went into the interview room.
Victoria sat behind glass.
For the first time in all the years I had known her, she looked small.
No pearls.
No designer dress.
No perfectly styled silver hair.
She wore gray sweatpants and a navy sweater.
A bruise marked her wrist.
When she saw me, her face crumpled.
“Claire.”
I remained standing.
“Who put you here?”
She looked toward the camera.
“Are we being recorded?”
“Yes.”
“Then I can’t talk.”
“Victoria, nobody is getting you out unless you tell us what happened.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You think I want Dominic?”
“I didn’t say Dominic.”
That made her look at me.
“He signed the papers.”
“No, he didn’t.”
She froze.
“The signature was forged.”
Her breathing changed.
“Then he knows.”
“Knows what?”
She looked frightened.
Not performatively frightened.
Genuinely.
“Vanessa.”
My stomach tightened.
“What about Vanessa?”
Victoria whispered, “She knows everything.”
Vanessa Sterling.
The woman at the gala.
The woman Victoria had wanted Dominic to marry.
The woman standing only yards away when Victoria shoved me.
“Explain.”
Victoria pressed both hands to the table.
“I made mistakes.”
“That’s one way to describe attempted murder.”
“I didn’t mean to push you down the stairs.”
“You put both hands on me.”
“I wanted you away from the folder.”
“Our baby died.”
Her face twisted.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Tears appeared.
“I didn’t know you were pregnant.”
“That doesn’t make me less injured.”
“No.”
For once, she didn’t argue.
“I’m sorry.”
I felt nothing.
Maybe one day I would.
But apology without accountability was merely sound.
“Vanessa,” I said.
Victoria nodded.
“Her father was Sebastian’s attorney.”
That caught me off guard.
“Charles Sterling?”
“Yes.”
“Dominic said your families were friends.”
“We were partners.”
“In what?”
“Everything.”
Victoria told me Charles Sterling had helped Sebastian create many of the offshore structures used to hide stolen pension money.
After Sebastian died, Victoria and Charles quietly continued moving assets.
But eventually Charles wanted more.
Control of Blackwood Global.
His plan depended on Vanessa marrying Dominic.
“That’s why you hated me.”
“One reason.”
I almost laughed.
“At least you’re consistent.”
Victoria looked ashamed.
“When Dominic married you, Charles blamed me.”
“So?”
“He spent years searching for leverage.”
“What leverage?”
“My involvement in Thomas’s estate.”
I understood.
Charles knew Victoria had helped steal from me.
He could expose her whenever he wanted.
“He controlled you.”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Three months ago, Charles died.”
I remembered reading about it.
Heart attack.
“Vanessa inherited his files,” Victoria continued.
“And she made you keep helping her?”
“She wanted Dominic.”
“Dominic isn’t a company share.”
“To Vanessa, he is.”
The puzzle assembled slowly.
“Was she in the private suite with Dominic after I fell?”
Victoria lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
A sting went through me despite everything.
“She arranged it.”
“How?”
“She told Dominic you’d been drinking.”
“No. You told him that.”
“Because she told me that was what the cameras would support.”
I stared at her.
“Vanessa controlled the security system?”
“Her family’s company installed it.”
The disabled cameras.
The deleted footage.
It all fit.
“But Mia’s video ruined the story.”
“Yes.”
“What happened after you learned about the miscarriage?”
“I panicked.”
“So you ran.”
“Vanessa told me investigators would uncover everything. She arranged the jet and told me Mercer would meet me.”
“But you never went.”
“No. Her men intercepted me before the airport.”
“Why?”
“She wanted me hidden.”
“Why not kill you?”
Victoria’s eyes met mine.
“Because she needed me alive to confess.”
“To what?”
“Your father’s murder.”
I stopped breathing.
Vanessa intended to place every crime on Victoria.
Then she could emerge beside Dominic as the supportive lifelong friend who helped rebuild Blackwood Global.
It was monstrous.
And clever.
“Why did she use Dominic’s signature?”
“To make it appear he had hidden me.”
That would implicate him too.
If Dominic faced criminal investigation and removal from the company, Vanessa—through Sterling family holdings—could potentially gain massive influence.
I stood.
“Is that everything?”
“No.”
Victoria’s voice changed.
I waited.
“She knew about the baby.”
My skin turned cold.
“What?”
“Vanessa knew you were pregnant.”
“That’s impossible. I didn’t know.”
“She had access to your clinic account.”
“Why?”
“Dominic’s fertility reports passed through the Blackwood family office because the insurance plan—”
“She saw my results?”
“She saw laboratory indicators from your blood tests.”
My knees weakened.
Several days before the gala, bloodwork from my fertility clinic apparently showed elevated pregnancy hormones.
The clinic had requested confirmation.
I never saw the message.
Because someone deleted it from my patient portal.
“Vanessa knew.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“No.”
I stared through Victoria.
If Vanessa knew I was pregnant, then my fall was no longer simply an opportunity she exploited afterward.
It might have been something she wanted.
“Did Vanessa tell you to confront me?”
Victoria nodded.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She told me you had copied the Bennett files. She said if you left the mansion with them, everything would collapse.”
“And she knew you’d be angry.”
“Yes.”
“She put us together at the staircase.”
Victoria started crying.
“I didn’t plan to hurt you.”
“But she knew you might.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve said that.”
I walked toward the door.
Victoria called after me.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
“There’s something else.”
I turned.
“Vanessa has been sleeping with Dominic.”
My stomach dropped.
Victoria watched me carefully.
“For months.”
I opened the door.
Dominic was waiting outside.
He saw my face.
“What happened?”
I walked past him.
“Claire?”
He followed.
I kept moving until we reached the parking lot.
“Did you sleep with Vanessa?”
He stopped.
“What?”
“Answer me.”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me now.”
“I’m not.”
“Your mother says you’ve been sleeping with her for months.”
His expression went from confusion to anger.
“That’s a lie.”
“You were alone with her upstairs at the gala.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She asked me to help with Sterling Foundation funding.”
“At eleven at night?”
“The conversation started earlier.”
“Did she kiss you?”
Silence.
That was an answer.
I laughed bitterly.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“While we were married.”
“Yes.”
“Did you kiss her back?”
His face crumpled.
“For maybe two seconds.”
I closed my eyes.
“Claire—”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Everything inside me went quiet.
“We were fighting constantly,” he said. “You had moved into the guest room—”
“Careful.”
He stopped.
“Don’t make your betrayal something I caused.”
“You’re right.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Victoria?”
“No.”
“Vanessa?”
“She knew it was a mistake. I told her it would never happen again.”
I nodded slowly.
That explained why Victoria believed there was an affair.
Vanessa had probably encouraged the assumption.
“Thank you for answering.”
I started walking.
“Claire.”
I turned.
Dominic stood alone beside his car.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him.
“Me too.”
That evening Rachel filed the final divorce documents.
There would be no going back.
But there was still Vanessa.
Agent Hale obtained a warrant for her apartment.
They found no incriminating documents.
Her computers were clean.
Her phone contained nothing unusual.
It looked like she had prepared.
Then investigators searched her father’s old country house.
Behind a false panel in Charles Sterling’s library, they found photographs.
Financial ledgers.
Copies of my medical records.
And a handwritten plan.
At the top Vanessa had written:
B.W. SUCCESSION
Below were several steps.
Expose Victoria.
Compromise Dominic.
Recover controlling shares.
One line had been circled twice.
Remove Claire before pregnancy announcement.
Agent Hale showed me the photograph.
My entire body went numb.
Vanessa hadn’t pushed me.
But she had created the conditions.
She knew Victoria’s temper.
She knew about my baby.
And she put us on that staircase together.
Yet Vanessa Sterling was nowhere to be found.
Her apartment was empty.
Her passport remained at home.
Her car was discovered at JFK.
And on the passenger seat investigators found a single envelope addressed to me.
Inside was a photograph of Dominic asleep.
Taken through his bedroom window.
On the back, Vanessa had written:
HE WAS ALWAYS SUPPOSED TO BE MINE.
May you like
Then beneath it:
YOU TOOK MY LIFE, CLAIRE. NOW I’M TAKING YOURS.
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