Chapter 5 - THE SECOND PREGNANCY
“No.”
Arthur said it immediately.
One word.
Absolute.
He stared at the photograph as if it were a grenade someone had placed in his hand.
Michael leaned against the wall.
“That’s what Mom told me.”
Arthur looked at him.
“And you believed her?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“You believed enough to help destroy my wife.”
Michael winced.
I couldn’t stop staring at the photograph.
The woman was beautiful.
Blonde hair.
Soft smile.
Pregnant.
Maybe six months.
Victoria had one hand on her shoulder.
They looked close.
Comfortable.
Like family.
Arthur crossed the room and gave the photograph to Detective Monroe.
“I have never seen this woman.”
Michael watched him.
“She claims you met before deployment.”
“I didn’t.”
“She has messages.”
“Then they’re fake.”
“Pictures.”
Arthur looked at him.
“What pictures?”
Michael pointed toward a file cabinet.
Monroe opened it.
The folder was labeled REBECCA MORGAN.
Inside were printed screenshots.
Text conversations.
Photographs.
One showed Arthur walking into a restaurant.
Another showed the blonde woman entering the same restaurant.
A caption had been added:
FEBRUARY 12 — FIRST MEETING
Arthur studied the pictures.
“I was there for a unit retirement dinner.”
I remembered that night.
He had come home late carrying a piece of chocolate cake wrapped in foil because he knew I liked the frosting from that restaurant.
The next photograph showed Arthur leaving a hotel.
“That was the military leadership conference in Richmond.”
Rebecca was photographed leaving the same hotel.
Arthur laughed once.
Not with humor.
“These don’t show us together.”
“No,” Monroe said. “They establish proximity. Useful if someone wants to build a story.”
There were text messages allegedly between Arthur and Rebecca.
I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL WE DON’T HAVE TO HIDE.
CLARA CAN NEVER KNOW ABOUT THE BABY.
MY MOTHER WILL HELP US WHEN THE TIME COMES.
My stomach twisted.
Arthur looked at me immediately.
“They aren’t mine.”
“I know.”
He crossed to me.
“Clara.”
“I said I know.”
And I did.
That was the strange thing.
Twenty-four hours earlier, Victoria might have used those screenshots to destroy me.
Now?
I saw the machinery.
The wording.
The staged photographs.
The same careful construction used against me.
“They did to you what they did to me,” I said.
Arthur’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
Detective Monroe continued reading.
“Rebecca Morgan, thirty-four, registered nurse.”
My eyes narrowed.
“Where?”
Monroe stopped.
“Hargrove Behavioral Recovery Center.”
Nobody spoke.
Arthur looked toward Michael.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Did Mother?”
Michael gave him a tired look.
“Mom knows everything.”
Agent Price entered carrying his phone.
“We’ve confirmed Rebecca Morgan exists.”
Arthur gestured toward the photograph.
“Where is she?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“She left her apartment three days ago.”
I felt the baby move.
Price continued.
“She requested emergency leave from Hargrove. Told coworkers she was traveling to stay with family.”
“Where?”
“No one seems to know.”
Monroe held up the photo.
“Is she actually pregnant?”
Price nodded.
“According to employment records, yes.”
Arthur rubbed the back of his neck.
“Then whose child is it?”
Michael stared toward the crib.
“I think that’s what Mom was trying to hide.”
The room went silent again.
Arthur looked at him.
“Explain.”
Michael sat down.
For the first time since his arrest, he looked less defensive than exhausted.
“About eight months ago, Mom started talking about Dad’s trust. She said everything would change if Clara had a baby.”
“We already know that.”
“She kept saying Dad made a mistake. That the company belonged to the Vance sons, not some future grandchild.”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
“Dad deliberately protected the next generation.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Michael nodded.
“Now.”
“What changed?”
Michael looked at me.
“Clara got pregnant.”
I didn’t understand.
“So?”
“Once you announced the pregnancy, Mom panicked.”
“That still doesn’t explain Rebecca.”
Michael swallowed.
“She said we needed another heir.”
Arthur stared at him.
“What?”
“A child she could control.”
The words settled over us like dust.
Michael continued.
“She told me if another Vance grandchild was born first, we could challenge the trust.”
Arthur opened the binder again.
“That isn’t how the trust works.”
“I know that now.”
“Then why—”
“Because she didn’t show me the real amendment.”
Arthur froze.
Michael rubbed his face.
“She showed me a fake version.”
Of course she had.
Everybody received a different lie.
Victoria told me Arthur was dead.
She told Hargrove I was unstable.
She told Michael that Arthur intended to take everything.
And perhaps she told Rebecca something else entirely.
Detective Monroe closed the folder.
“We need to find Rebecca.”
Arthur looked at me.
“We’re leaving.”
I nodded.
I had seen enough.
But as we reached the doorway, I noticed a small object on the dresser.
A silver picture frame.
Inside was an ultrasound image.
A handwritten note underneath read:
OUR SECOND CHANCE.
Signed:
V.V.
Victoria Vance.
Not Arthur.
Not Rebecca.
Victoria.
I picked it up.
“Arthur.”
He turned.
I showed him.
His face changed.
“She thought this baby was hers,” I whispered.
Michael looked at the floor.
“Yes.”
The drive home was quiet.
Police had released the house after processing the kitchen.
Arthur insisted we stay elsewhere, but I wanted clothes and a few personal things.
Walking back into our home felt like walking into a crime scene disguised as my life.
The kitchen smelled faintly of burnt fabric.
The iron was gone.
So were the papers.
But one crushed lily remained under the table.
Arthur picked it up.
“I bought these at the airport.”
“I know.”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“You did.”
He almost smiled.
Then his face fell.
“I should have been here.”
“No.”
“Clara—”
“You were serving overseas.”
“I should have seen what my mother was doing before I left.”
“So should I.”
He looked at me.
“That’s different.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I stepped closer.
“She raised you. You trusted her because she was your mother. I trusted her because she was your mother.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
“She always needed control.”
“How bad was it when you were young?”
He leaned against the counter.
“Not like this.”
“But bad?”
He hesitated.
“My father traveled for work. Mother controlled everything at home. Grades. Friends. Food. Sports.”
“Michael?”
“Michael learned to give her what she wanted.”
“And you?”
“I learned to leave.”
That explained more than he realized.
The Army.
Distance.
Discipline.
Arthur hadn’t simply chosen a career.
Part of him had escaped.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Arthur looked at the screen.
“Don’t answer.”
It rang again.
Then a text appeared.
PLEASE. I NEED TO SPEAK TO CLARA BEFORE VICTORIA FINDS ME.
Arthur’s eyes narrowed.
Another message.
A photograph loaded.
Rebecca Morgan.
The woman from Victoria’s nursery.
She stood in what appeared to be a motel bathroom, one hand on her pregnant stomach.
The next message said:
THE BABY IS NOT ARTHUR’S.
Then:
VICTORIA PAID ME TO SAY IT WAS.
I stared at the screen.
Arthur called Detective Monroe immediately.
Before he finished dialing, another message arrived.
SHE PROMISED ME $250,000.
Then another.
BUT THAT ISN’T THE WORST PART.
My heart hammered.
“What could be worse?”
Arthur’s phone connected.
“Detective, we have contact from Rebecca Morgan.”
My screen lit up again.
This time it was an audio recording.
Thirty-seven seconds.
Arthur put the phone on speaker.
Rebecca’s voice came first.
Nervous.
“Victoria, I can’t do this after the baby is born.”
Then Victoria.
Clear.
Calm.
“You’ve already taken the money.”
“I thought I was only supposed to pretend Arthur was the father.”
“That remains your role.”
“And Clara?”
A pause.
Then Victoria’s voice.
“Clara will not be in a position to contradict anyone.”
Rebecca sounded frightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means she will be under medical supervision.”
“For how long?”
“As long as necessary.”
“What about Arthur?”
Victoria sighed.
“Men in uniform die every day, Rebecca. Sometimes on paper before they die anywhere else.”
The recording ended.
Arthur went completely still.
I stared at him.
Rebecca had proved the affair was fake.
But she had also revealed something darker.
Victoria hadn’t merely forged Arthur’s death to frighten me.
She had been constructing a legal reality in which he stayed dead.
The phone buzzed again.
One final message.
I HAVE THE ORIGINAL FILES. I’LL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING. MEET ME AT THE OLD FAIRVIEW DINER AT 8 P.M. COME WITH POLICE.
Detective Monroe heard it through Arthur’s phone.
“Do not go without us.”
“We won’t.”
Eight o’clock arrived with rain.
The Fairview Diner was nearly empty.
Arthur and I sat in a booth near the back while Detective Monroe and two officers waited nearby in plain clothes.
Eight-ten.
No Rebecca.
Eight-twenty.
Nothing.
At eight-thirty-one, Monroe’s phone rang.
Her face changed as she listened.
“What?”
Arthur stood.
Monroe ended the call.
“They found Rebecca’s car.”
“Where?”
“Two miles from here.”
I gripped the table.
“Is she in it?”
“No.”
Arthur exhaled.
“Then where is she?”
Monroe looked toward the rain-streaked windows.
“The driver’s door was open. Her phone was on the ground.”
My stomach turned.
“And Rebecca?”
“Gone.”
Arthur’s expression hardened.
Then Monroe’s phone buzzed with a photograph from the responding officer.
A black SUV had been captured by a gas-station camera near Rebecca’s abandoned car.
Monroe enlarged the license plate.
Arthur leaned closer.
He knew it immediately.
“That’s my mother’s SUV.”
But Victoria was supposed to be in custody.
Detective Monroe made a call.
She spoke for less than thirty seconds.
When she ended it, her face was grim.
“Victoria was released on bond forty minutes ago.”
And suddenly we understood.
May you like
Rebecca had not been hiding from Victoria.
She had been running.
