Chapter 5 - The Spider in the Web
Before dawn broke, my phone buzzed incessantly against the mahogany nightstand.
Forty-seven missed calls. Twelve voicemails.
They were all from Vanessa.
I picked up the phone and pressed play on the latest voicemail. Vanessa's voice was ragged, slurred with alcohol, and dripping with manic desperation.
*"Graham, please... you have to listen to me! Your mother is insane! She’s threatening me! She said if I don't fix this with you, she's going to ruin me! I love you, Graham! Everything I did, I did because I loved you! That little girl was coached by Elena’s family! Meet me at the Drake Hotel penthouse. Please, just give me ten minutes to explain before your mother does something terrible!"*
I looked at Mark, who had heard the entire message through the speakerphone.
"She’s cracking," Mark noted. "Diane is cutting her loose. Vanessa realizes she’s about to take the fall for wire fraud, kidnapping, and conspiracy."
"Good," I said, slipping my phone into my pocket. "Set up a recording device. We’re going to give Vanessa her ten minutes."
Twenty minutes later, I walked into the dimly lit lounge of the Drake Hotel. Vanessa was sitting in a secluded booth near the back, clutching a half-empty martini glass. Her designer dress was wrinkled, her makeup was smeared around her swollen eyes, and she looked nothing like the polished, elegant socialite who had stood beside me at the altar yesterday.
When she saw me approach, she gasped, stumbling to her feet and throwing her arms around my neck.
"Graham! Oh, thank God! Thank God you came!"
I didn't hug her back. I stood stiff as marble, waiting until she pulled away, unsettled by my silence.
"Sit down, Vanessa," I said quietly.
She sank back into the booth, her hands trembling violently as she smoothed her hair. "Graham, you have to believe me. Yesterday was a nightmare. I don't know how Chloe escaped, but—"
She stopped abruptly, realizing what she had just said. Her eyes widened in horror.
"You don't know how Chloe *escaped*?" I repeated, leaning forward, resting my forearms on the table. "That’s an interesting choice of words, Vanessa. A child doesn't 'escape' from an ordinary home, does she? She escapes from a prison."
Vanessa’s lips parted, but no sound came out. She swallowed hard, clutching her martini glass like a life raft. "I... I meant escaped from whoever took her! Graham, your mother... Diane orchestrated everything! I was just an employee at first! She approached me when my PR firm was drowning!"
"Tell me about Blackwood Pines," I demanded, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper.
"I didn't want to hurt Elena!" Vanessa cried softly, glancing nervously around the empty lounge. "Diane told me Elena was manic! She told me Elena had threatened to ruin your family’s legacy! Diane promised me that if I helped keep Elena quiet and made you happy, she would pay off my debts and set me up for life! She said Elena was sick, Graham! She said Dr. Sterling was helping her!"
"Helping her?" I leaned across the table until my face was inches from hers. "By drugging her into submission? By stealing my seven-year-old daughter and locking her in a compound in the Wisconsin wilderness?"
"Diane took Chloe because Chloe wouldn't stop asking questions!" Vanessa sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "The girl saw Diane forge Elena’s signature on the bank transfers! Diane panicked! She told me if the police got involved, all three of us would go to federal prison!"
"Where is Elena right now?" I asked, each word deliberate, cold, and razor-sharp. "Is she alive?"
"Yes! Yes, she's alive!" Vanessa gasped, looking up, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Dr. Sterling keeps her in the lower ward. But Diane called him last night after the wedding. She told Sterling to... to terminate the arrangement. To move Elena to an unlicensed clinic in Mexico before sunrise tomorrow. Once she crosses that border, Graham, you will never see her again!"
My heart seized with an agonizing terror, but my face remained an unreadable mask of ice.
I reached inside my suit jacket, pulled out a small, blinking digital audio transmitter, and set it gently in the center of the table.
Vanessa stared at the red light, her breath catching in her throat. All color drained from her face.
"You... you recorded me?" she whispered, horrified.
"Every single syllable," I said, standing up from the booth.
Two plainclothes FBI agents, who had been sitting quietly at the bar, stood up and walked toward our table, badges displayed in their leather wallets.
"Vanessa Croft," the lead agent said firmly. "You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, interstate fraud, and false imprisonment. Put your hands behind your back."
Vanessa stared at me as the cold steel handcuffs clicked around her wrists. "Graham, please! I did it for you! I loved you!"
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"You never loved me," I said, turning away as the agents led her toward the exit. "You loved my mother’s money. And now, you can spend the rest of your life counting the cost."
***
