Victor’s First Daughter
Chapter 06 - Victor’s First Daughter
The behavioral facility cancelled Emma’s admission after state police contacted them.
Its director claimed the forms appeared valid.
No one had spoken to Laura.
No one had spoken to Emma.
The deposit was paid by Bellweather Renewal Partners.
Marlene added fraud and attempted custodial interference to the growing list.
Victor’s attorney argued that he was arranging care for a troubled child at Laura’s request.
“He doesn’t even like children,” Maggie said.
Emma heard her.
“He likes children who don’t talk.”
The words hung in the room.
Two days later, a woman named Sophie Cross arrived at Marlene’s office.
She was twenty-nine, narrow-faced, with Victor’s pale eyes and a scar beneath her chin. Laura knew Victor had a daughter from his first marriage.
He said Sophie was unstable.
He said she stole from him and disappeared.
Sophie sat without removing her coat.
“I saw the news.”
Laura waited.
“I’m not here because I care what happens to him,” Sophie said. “I’m here because he is using the same doctor.”
Dr. Gerald Wren had signed Laura’s psychiatric evaluation.
He had also evaluated Sophie at sixteen.
Victor used the report to place her in a residential school after she told a teacher he hit her mother.
“My mother withdrew the complaint,” Sophie said. “I spent fourteen months there.”
“What happened to her?” Laura asked.
Sophie looked down.
“She died six years later.”
Victor told Laura his first wife died from complications of alcoholism.
Sophie said the official cause was an accidental fall down the basement stairs.
“She had bruises on both arms,” Sophie said. “He said she fought the paramedics.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Deputy Nolan wrote the report.”
Lena Ortiz requested the old file.
Half the photographs were missing.
The autopsy noted injuries inconsistent with a single fall but concluded no evidence of homicide.
Victor had collected a life-insurance policy.
Sophie handed Marlene a storage receipt.
“My mother kept records in a locker. Victor thinks I emptied it.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I was afraid of what I’d find.”
Laura understood that fear.
Evidence did not always set a woman free.
Sometimes it confirmed how long she had been trapped.
They went to the storage facility together.
Inside the unit were Christmas decorations, old dishes, a sewing machine, and four boxes marked TAX.
The third box contained photographs of Victor’s first wife, Caroline, with bruises hidden under scarves and long sleeves.
The fourth held bank statements.
Victor had been moving insurance payments through shell companies years before he met Laura.
One company name appeared repeatedly.
Hale Structural Consulting.
That had been Laura’s first husband’s business.
David Hale died in a scaffolding collapse fourteen years earlier.
Victor entered Laura’s life six months after the funeral, first as the contractor repairing the damaged site, then as a friend helping her navigate insurance claims.
Laura sat down on the storage floor.
“What is his name doing here?”
Sophie opened another file.
Kane Restoration had subcontracted David’s firm on the project. The accident report blamed David for failing to secure the platform.
Laura had believed it.
David had been exhausted and distracted during Emma’s difficult pregnancy. She spent years quietly resenting him for leaving her with two children.
But the bank records showed Victor paid the safety inspector three days after the collapse.
Marlene called Daniel, Laura’s twenty-three-year-old son.
He answered from Colorado.
Laura had not seen him in eighteen months.
Victor said Daniel wanted distance.
When Laura asked whether he knew about Kane Restoration, Daniel went silent.
“Mom,” he said, “I tried to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Dad didn’t install that scaffolding.”
Laura’s hand tightened around the phone.
“How do you know?”
“Because I found his field notebook. Victor took it from me.”
“When?”
“The night he threw me out.”
Laura stood.
Victor told her Daniel left after stealing money.
Daniel said Victor shoved him against a garage wall and threatened to have him arrested if he contacted Emma.
“I wrote to you,” Daniel said.
“I never got anything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because last month all the letters came back.”
Laura stopped breathing.
“Who sent them?”
“No one. They were in a box Victor mailed to me.”
Daniel’s voice broke.
“On top was Dad’s notebook.”
“What did it say?”
“The scaffold had been altered after inspection.”
“By whom?”
A long silence.
May you like
Then Daniel said, “Dad wrote one name.”
Victor.
