Chapter 10 - THE FIRST WIFE
Police located Susan Vale the next morning.
She had not moved to Arizona.
She lived twenty-three miles from Nashville under her maiden name and worked remotely as an insurance claims processor.
The gray sedan had been registered to her until six months earlier, when she reported it sold for cash.
Susan denied driving Derek.
Traffic-camera enhancement told a different story.
When Detective Reyes showed her the image, she requested an attorney.
Then she asked whether Emily was alive.
The question changed the interview.
By afternoon, Susan agreed to meet Emily through a secure video call.
Her face appeared on a tablet in Briarwood’s private conference room. She was thirty-nine, with red hair cut to her shoulders and the pale scar running above her left eye.
Nora, Tasha, and Detective Reyes remained in the room with Emily.
Susan sat beside her lawyer.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Then Susan said, “I’m sorry.”
Emily did not know which part she meant.
“Did you help Derek escape?”
Susan looked down.
“He called and said his father was having a heart attack. He told me Richard was at a gas station and needed transportation.”
“You believed him?”
“I believed Richard might be in danger.”
“Why would Derek call you after all these years?”
Susan closed her eyes.
“Because I never completely stopped answering.”
Emily felt anger rise.
“Were you having an affair with him?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Susan looked directly into the camera.
“Because he had recordings of me.”
The room became still.
“What recordings?”
“After we married, Derek installed cameras in our apartment. I didn’t know. He recorded arguments, private conversations, everything.”
Emily felt a chill of recognition.
“When I tried to leave,” Susan continued, “he threatened to send edited clips to my employer and my parents. He said they would show me drinking, screaming, threatening him.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“I threatened to call the police after Marjorie pushed me down the basement stairs.”
Emily stared at the scar.
“That wasn’t a car accident.”
“No.”
Susan touched the mark unconsciously.
“I needed fourteen stitches. They told the hospital I had been drinking and slipped.”
“Did Derek tell you to say that?”
“He whispered it while the nurse was outside.”
Tell them you fell.
The same sentence.
The same method.
Susan’s marriage had happened almost ten years before Emily’s attack.
Derek had not invented the lie for Emily.
He had practiced it.
“Why didn’t you report them later?” Emily asked.
“I did.”
Susan’s voice hardened.
“A deputy interviewed me. Marjorie brought photographs of wine bottles and statements from relatives. Derek showed them messages where I called him a monster. He said I was suicidal.”
“Were you?”
“I was terrified.”
“What happened?”
“No charges. Derek filed for divorce first. He took most of our savings and told everyone I cheated.”
Emily thought of the story he had repeated for six years.
“She disappeared with another man.”
Susan gave a bitter smile.
“There was no other man.”
“Why keep answering Derek?”
“Because after the divorce, he sent me reminders. A photograph of my apartment. A copy of my new employment contract. A message on my mother’s birthday.”
“He kept watching you.”
“Yes.”
Susan wiped her eyes.
“Three months ago, he contacted me more often. He asked what happened when I applied for disability leave after the stairs.”
Emily leaned forward.
“What did you tell him?”
“That my employer required medical documentation.”
“Did he ask about guardianship?”
“Yes.”
Susan’s lawyer placed a printed email near the camera.
Derek had written:
Would a temporary psychiatric hold have prevented you from challenging financial decisions?
Susan had replied:
Do not contact me again.
Derek answered:
That is not an answer.
Susan looked ashamed.
“When he called yesterday, he said Richard was dying. I drove to the address he gave me. Derek came out instead.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“He had a gun.”
Detective Reyes spoke for the first time.
“Where did you take him?”
“To an abandoned shopping center near Interstate 65. Marjorie was waiting in another car.”
“What vehicle?”
“A white delivery van.”
“License plate?”
Susan provided the first three characters.
“Where were they going?”
“Derek said they needed to reach Memphis.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Emily did.
“My grandmother’s bank.”
Lauren Pike had explained that the trust’s original records were stored with a financial institution in Memphis.
Derek could not transfer the money, but he might destroy records, intimidate employees, or obtain information he believed would help him.
Police alerted authorities along the interstate.
The white van was found at a rest stop.
Empty.
Inside were maps, food containers, and a newspaper with an article about Emily’s case.
Someone had circled a photograph of Detective Reyes.
Another circle surrounded Emily’s attorney, Nora Kim.
“They’re building a list,” Emily said.
Nora’s expression remained calm.
“They already had one.”
Susan’s video interview continued for nearly three hours.
She described Marjorie monitoring her meals, criticizing her clothes, and accusing her of trying to destroy the family whenever she disagreed.
She described Derek controlling passwords and hiding bills.
She described the basement stairs.
Most importantly, she described a wooden rolling pin Marjorie once held while warning Susan that “a woman who refuses to bend eventually has to be broken.”
The language was almost identical to what Marjorie said before striking Emily.
The pattern now stretched across a decade.
Before the call ended, Susan leaned toward the camera.
“There’s something else.”
Emily waited.
“Derek kept trophies.”
“What kind of trophies?”
“Items from arguments. A broken bracelet. My old driver’s license. A voice recorder.”
“Where?”
“In a metal toolbox he never used for tools.”
Richard had mentioned no toolbox.
Susan continued.
“He kept it in places Marjorie wouldn’t look. When we were married, it was behind the insulation in the garage.”
Detective Reyes arranged another search of the Whitaker home.
The current garage had already been examined, but investigators returned with specialized equipment.
Behind a removable wall panel, they discovered a narrow compartment.
Inside sat a red metal toolbox.
It contained Susan’s expired identification, strands of red hair tied with string, copies of her medical records, and photographs taken without her knowledge.
There were also items belonging to Emily.
A silver earring she thought she had lost.
An old work badge.
A letter from her mother.
A memory card labeled E.C. PRIVATE.
Police found recordings of Emily crying after arguments, speaking to Angela on the phone, and once telling Mrs. Harper that she sometimes dreamed of leaving.
Derek had saved the moment she revealed what she feared.
One audio file was dated six months earlier.
Emily’s own voice came through the speaker.
“If I had access to my grandmother’s money now, I think I would leave.”
Mrs. Harper answered.
“Then start preparing before the money arrives.”
Emily remembered the conversation.
They had stood beside the fence while Derek was supposedly at work.
Another voice followed after Emily went inside.
Derek.
He had been listening live.
“She won’t make it to November.”
The recording ended.
It was not a discussion with Marjorie.
It was Derek speaking to himself.
Nora looked toward Detective Reyes.
“That statement supports premeditation.”
Reyes nodded.
Emily sat very still.
For months, Derek had known she planned to leave.
The attack was not designed merely to gain control of the trust.
It was designed to prevent escape.
Marcus arrived for therapy as investigators packed away the evidence.
Emily wanted to cancel.
Instead, she asked to practice standing.
Her right leg could not touch the floor. Marcus placed a walker in front of her and locked the wheelchair.
“Push through your arms and your left foot.”
Emily looked at the floor.
“I’m afraid.”
“That is allowed.”
“What if I fall?”
“I’m here.”
“And when you’re not?”
“Then you use what you learned while I was.”
Emily gripped the walker.
She pushed upward.
For one second, her body rose.
Her left leg trembled violently.
Then she sank back into the chair.
“Again,” she said.
On the fourth attempt, she stood for six seconds.
On the fifth, ten.
When she sat, tears ran down her face.
Marcus offered a towel.
“That was standing.”
Emily wiped her eyes.
“It didn’t feel like much.”
“Most freedom doesn’t, at first.”
That evening, police received a tip from a motel clerk outside Memphis.
A woman matching Marjorie’s description had checked in using false identification.
Officers surrounded the motel.
Inside the room, they found maps, forged documents, and a laptop connected to the dark web.
They also found Marjorie.
Alone.
Derek was gone.
May you like
During her arrest, Marjorie smiled at the officers and asked one question.
“Has Emily tried walking yet?”
