Chapter 4 - I Discovered Her Dark Past—And Realized I Was Not Her First Victim**
The private investigator, Marcus, called me three days later.
“I found something you need to see,” he said, his voice serious.
“Meet me at my office.”
I went there immediately.
Marcus laid a folder on the table in front of me.
“Vanessa Hale,” he said.
“Or should I say, Vanessa Carter. Or Vanessa Reed. She’s used a few names over the years.”
I opened the folder.
Inside were old newspaper clippings, police reports, photographs.
“Five years ago,” Marcus said, “she was engaged to a man named Richard Carter. He was a wealthy real estate developer in Detroit. He started having health problems about six months before their wedding. Fatigue. Hearing loss. Balance issues. Doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong. He died two weeks before the wedding. The official cause of death was a rare neurological disorder. Vanessa inherited almost ten million dollars from his estate.”
My blood ran cold.
I looked at the photo of Richard Carter.
He looked healthy.
Strong.
Just like me.
“And before that,” Marcus continued, “there was a man named Thomas Reed in Milwaukee. Also wealthy. Also engaged to Vanessa. Also died of mysterious causes shortly before they were supposed to get married. She inherited his fortune too.”
He leaned forward, his eyes hard.
“She’s a black widow, Ethan. She finds wealthy men, gets engaged to them, slowly poisons them, and inherits everything when they die. You’re just the latest in a line of victims. And you’re the first one who caught on before it was too late.”
I stared at the photos of the dead men.
They could have been me.
That was supposed to be me.
Dying slowly, confused, while the woman I loved held my hand and planned her next move.
“How did she get away with it twice?” I asked.
Marcus shook his head.
“She’s careful. Very careful. The poisons she uses mimic natural diseases. The doses are small, administered over months. By the time the men die, there’s almost no trace left in their systems. And she plays the grieving fiancée perfectly. Everyone feels sorry for her. No one suspects a thing.”
He tapped the folder.
“But this time, she made a mistake. She didn’t know you could read sign language. She didn’t count on a four-year-old girl seeing what she was doing. And she didn’t count on you being smart enough to listen.”
I closed the folder, my hands shaking with rage.
“She’s not going to get away with it this time,” I said.
“I’m going to make sure of it.”
Marcus nodded.
“I have more than enough here to build a case. But if we go to the police now, she might get out on bail. She might run. And I’d hate for her to hurt someone else while we wait for a trial.”
I thought about it.
Vanessa loved attention.
She loved being the center of my world, the future Mrs. Ethan Mercer.
She was already planning our wedding, already telling everyone about the life we were going to have together.
She thought she had already won.
And that was her biggest weakness.
“I have a better idea,” I said slowly.
“Something that will make sure she can never run. Something that will expose her for exactly who she is, in front of everyone she’s been trying to impress.”
I told Marcus my plan.
He smiled, a cold, satisfied smile.
“That’s perfect,” he said.
“She’ll never see it coming.”
On the drive home, I thought about Richard Carter and Thomas Reed.
Two men who had loved Vanessa, who had trusted her, who had died because of her greed.
I thought about their families, who had grieved for them never knowing the truth.
I wasn’t just doing this for myself anymore.
I was doing it for them.
For Lily and Nora.
For anyone else Vanessa might have targeted next.
May you like
She was going to pay for everything she had done.
And I was going to make sure the whole world knew exactly what she was.
