Chapter 2 - The Woman Andrew Buried
Victoria Sterling never made it upstairs.
Andrew’s security chief, Marcus Reed, found her in the rear corridor trying to open the service entrance.
By the time Andrew reached her, she had abandoned panic and returned to outrage.
“This is kidnapping.”
Marcus stood between Victoria and the locked door.
“No, ma’am. Mr. Calloway asked that no one leave the property until the police arrive.”
“Police?”
Victoria turned on Andrew.
“You called the police?”
“I’m about to.”
“Because a maid had a nightmare?”
“Because you ran.”
“I was leaving an insane situation.”
“You were running through the servants’ corridor.”
Victoria’s jaw tightened.
Andrew had known her for eleven years.
She had been Rachel’s friend first.
Their families moved through the same Manhattan charity circles, the same summer houses, the same private schools and winter galas.
Victoria had stood beside Andrew at Rachel’s funeral.
She had brought casseroles no one ate.
She had sat on Ben’s nursery floor when Andrew could not stop crying.
She had never pressured him during the first year.
Or the second.
Their relationship had grown quietly during the third.
At least that was what Andrew had believed.
Now he wondered how much of anything had happened accidentally.
Marcus spoke.
“Police are twenty minutes out.”
Victoria laughed.
“And what exactly are you going to tell them? A household employee knows a song?”
Andrew looked at her.
“I’m going to ask them to reopen the investigation into Rachel’s death.”
For the first time, Victoria’s confidence cracked.
“That investigation was closed.”
“Then we open it.”
“Based on what?”
Andrew stepped closer.
“Dr. Samuel Hale.”
“My father is dead.”
“And apparently the woman in my dining room spent part of the last three years at a facility connected to him.”
“He was a physician.”
“A cardiologist.”
Victoria blinked.
Andrew continued.
“Why was a cardiologist supervising an amnesia patient at a psychiatric recovery clinic outside Albany?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then maybe the police can help us find out.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You’re humiliating yourself.”
“Maybe.”
“You buried your wife.”
“I buried a body.”
“You saw her.”
“No.”
That truth hit Andrew with unexpected force.
He had never seen Rachel after the fire.
The medical examiner told him the burns were extensive.
Identification had supposedly been made through dental records and jewelry recovered from the body.
Rachel’s mother had begged Andrew not to view her.
“Remember her alive,” she had said.
Andrew had listened.
He had trusted experts.
He had trusted the identification.
He had trusted the necklace found on the body.
And the wedding ring.
The same wedding ring Mara now claimed someone had taken.
Andrew stared at Victoria.
“You were the one who brought Rachel’s dental records to the medical examiner.”
Victoria went still.
“So?”
“You said her dentist was skiing in Colorado and his office manager released them to you.”
“That is what happened.”
“Why did you volunteer?”
“Because you were barely functioning.”
That part was true.
Andrew remembered nothing clearly from those first forty-eight hours.
Rachel was dead.
Ben was three.
Evan was five.
Andrew had been sleeping two hours a night while investigators walked through the burned shell of their country home.
Victoria had handled phone calls.
Documents.
Funeral arrangements.
Things Andrew had been grateful not to touch.
Now every kindness looked like evidence.
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered quietly.
Andrew returned to the dining room.
Mara was sitting on a sofa now, wrapped in a blanket.
The boys refused to leave her.
Mrs. Carter, the household manager, hovered nearby holding tea.
She looked as frightened as everyone else.
Andrew crouched in front of Mara.
“How are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“That makes two of us.”
Her eyes lifted.
They were Rachel’s eyes.
Andrew had been fighting the thought for twenty minutes.
He lost.
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
Rachel would be thirty-five.
“Birthday?”
Mara hesitated.
“September twelve.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
Rachel’s birthday.
Mara saw his reaction.
“That is the birthday they gave me at the clinic.”
“Why?”
“They said I said it during recovery.”
Andrew sat beside her.
Evan leaned against Mara.
“You smell like Mommy.”
The room broke a little more.
Mara touched the boy’s hair.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For confusing you.”
“You’re not.”
Andrew looked at his son.
Evan’s expression was completely certain.
“Mommy had a little brown dot behind her ear.”
Mara froze.
Evan reached up.
“Can I?”
Mara slowly moved her hair.
Behind her left ear was a tiny birthmark.
Andrew stood so fast the coffee table shook.
Mrs. Carter whispered, “Dear God.”
Evan looked at his father.
“See?”
Andrew turned away.
He needed air.
He needed logic.
He needed something stronger than a child’s memory and a scar and a song.
His phone rang.
Marcus.
“What?”
“I checked the public corporate records.”
“And?”
“St. Catherine’s Recovery Center was owned by Hale Medical Holdings.”
Andrew looked toward the corridor where Victoria waited.
“Samuel Hale?”
“Indirectly. He held forty-nine percent.”
“Who held the rest?”
Marcus paused.
“Victoria Sterling.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
The police arrived eighteen minutes later.
Detective Lena Ortiz had been a junior investigator assigned to Rachel’s fire three years earlier.
Andrew recognized her immediately.
She recognized Mara.
And nearly dropped her notebook.
“What?”
Mara shrank backward.
Ortiz stared.
“I’m sorry.”
“You knew my wife?” Andrew asked.
Ortiz looked at him.
“Mr. Calloway, I interviewed Mrs. Calloway two months before the fire.”
The room fell silent.
Andrew’s skin prickled.
“About what?”
Ortiz glanced toward the children.
“Maybe we should speak privately.”
“No.”
Mara stood.
“If this involves me, I want to hear it.”
Ortiz studied her.
Then nodded.
“Mrs. Calloway contacted the police because she believed someone was entering her home.”
Andrew stared.
“What?”
“She reported objects being moved. Medication missing. She thought someone accessed her bedroom while the family was away.”
“She never told me.”
“She specifically asked us not to contact you yet.”
“Why?”
Ortiz’s expression softened.
“She was afraid you’d think she was imagining things.”
Andrew felt sick.
Rachel had suffered anxiety after Ben’s birth.
Not severe.
Not dangerous.
But enough that she sometimes questioned herself.
Someone could have used that.
“Was there an investigation?”
“We found no forced entry.”
“Who knew she made the report?”
“Mrs. Calloway. Myself. My supervisor.”
“And?”
Ortiz looked uncomfortable.
“Victoria Sterling.”
Andrew turned slowly.
Victoria stood at the doorway with Marcus behind her.
Her face was white.
Ortiz continued.
“Mrs. Sterling accompanied Rachel to the station.”
“Sterling wasn’t her name then,” Andrew said automatically.
Victoria had been unmarried at the time.
Ortiz nodded.
“Victoria Hale.”
Mara made a strangled sound.
Her hands flew to her head.
Andrew caught her elbow.
“What?”
She looked at Victoria.
“I remember.”
Victoria shook her head.
“No, you don’t.”
Mara backed away.
“You were in my bedroom.”
“Mara—”
“You were wearing my robe.”
Andrew’s pulse thundered.
Victoria snapped.
“This is absurd.”
Mara was crying now.
“I came home early.”
Andrew stared.
“When?”
“The fire.”
Pieces came out between breaths.
“I thought I was supposed to be in Boston.”
Andrew remembered.
Rachel had planned to attend a foundation conference.
Snow canceled the evening flight.
She had gone to the country house instead.
Andrew had been in Chicago.
The children were with his parents.
Mara pressed her fingers against her temples.
“I opened the bedroom door.”
“What did you see?”
Victoria’s voice turned sharp.
“Stop feeding her questions.”
Ortiz held up a hand.
“Ms. Sterling, do not interrupt.”
Mara stared at the floor.
“There was someone at the safe.”
Andrew’s heart slammed.
“What safe?”
“The wall safe.”
Their country house had contained one behind a painting.
“What was inside?”
Mara looked at him.
“Copies.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
She began shaking harder.
“No. I do.”
Her face went blank.
Then horrified.
“Bank transfers.”
Andrew turned toward Victoria.
Victoria’s expression changed.
Barely.
But enough.
Mara whispered, “Your father’s name was on them.”
Victoria rushed forward.
“You lying bitch.”
Marcus intercepted her.
Evan screamed.
Ben began crying.
Andrew moved between Victoria and Mara.
“Get her out.”
“Andrew!”
“To the library. Now.”
Marcus escorted Victoria away.
Ortiz watched them leave.
Then she looked at Andrew.
“Mr. Calloway, if this woman is Rachel, we need biological confirmation before anything else.”
Andrew nodded.
“A DNA test.”
“Yes.”
Mara wiped her face.
“How long?”
“With an emergency forensic request, we may have preliminary results tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
The word sounded impossible.
Andrew looked at Mara.
A stranger.
A maid.
A woman his sons already loved.
Maybe his wife.
Maybe a victim.
Maybe something else entirely.
“There is another way,” Evan said.
Everyone looked at him.
The boy slipped from the sofa.
He walked to an antique cabinet.
Opened the bottom drawer.
And pulled out an old wooden music box.
Andrew’s chest tightened.
Rachel’s music box.
She had owned it since childhood.
Evan carried it to Mara.
“Mommy had a secret place.”
Andrew frowned.
“What secret place?”
Evan pointed to the bottom.
“There.”
Mara stared.
Her breathing changed.
Slowly, she turned the music box over.
Without hesitation, her thumb pressed a tiny carved star near the corner.
A hidden compartment clicked open.
Andrew had never known it existed.
Inside lay a folded piece of paper.
Three years old.
Rachel’s handwriting covered the front.
Andrew recognized it instantly.
His hands went numb.
Written across the paper were four words:
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
Mara began to cry.
Victoria screamed from the library down the hall.
“DON’T OPEN THAT!”
Everyone in the room turned.
Andrew looked at the folded note.
Then at Mara.
Then toward the hallway.
May you like
And for the first time, he no longer wondered whether his wife had been murdered.
He wondered why someone had failed.
