Chapter 4: The Blue Folder
I got to the front door before Vanessa reached her car.
"Stop."
She had her keys in her hand and her bag over her shoulder.
She turned around slowly, like she had expected this, like she had already run the calculation and decided she still had options.
"Get out of my way, Daniel."
"What's in the blue folder?"
Something crossed her face.
Fast.
Gone before I could name it.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The filing cabinet.
Rachel told me about it.
What's in it?"
"Rachel." She said the name like it tasted wrong.
"You spoke to her for thirty seconds and now you're taking orders from her.
The woman who abandoned you.
Who let you believe she was d*ad."
"Who told me she was d*ad, Vanessa?"
She didn't answer.
"I want to know," I said.
"Right now.
Who told me Rachel d*ed?"
"The hospital called you."
"Which hospital."
"St.
Catherine's.
You know this."
"I called St.
Catherine's last year when I was updating Sophie's medical records.
They had no record of a Rachel Mercer.
No admission.
No d*ath.
Nothing."
Vanessa's chin came up slightly.
"You must have called the wrong department."
"I called four departments."
The street was quiet.
A neighbor's porch light was on two houses down.
Somewhere behind me, inside the house, Sophie was still asleep on the couch.
"Come back inside," I said.
"Show me what's in the folder.
If it's nothing, then it's nothing, and we can talk about all of this like adults.
But if you get in that car right now, I'm calling the police and I'm showing them the pool footage."
Vanessa looked at me for a long time.
Then she walked back inside.
I followed her to the small office off the hallway.
She opened the filing cabinet — second drawer, back left — and pulled out a blue folder.
She held it against her chest for a moment.
"Before you open that," she said, "I need you to understand something."
"Put it on the desk."
"Daniel—"
"Put it on the desk."
She set it down.
I opened it.
The first page was a legal document.
I read the header twice before the words made sense.
*Petition for Sole Custody — Rachel Anne Mercer, Petitioner.*
Filed twenty-six months ago.
Stamped received.
Stamped denied.
I turned to the next page.
A restraining order.
My name at the top.
Rachel's name below it.
*Respondent is prohibited from contacting, approaching, or communicating with the petitioner or the minor child Sophie Mercer by any means.*
My signature at the bottom.
I stared at it.
"I never signed this," I said.
"You were grieving," Vanessa said.
"You weren't thinking clearly.
I helped you with the paperwork.
You signed a lot of things that month."
"I signed a restraining order against my daughter's mother."
"You signed documents to protect Sophie.
That's what you wanted."
"Rachel was alive.
She was trying to get back to us.
And you put a restraining order in my name to keep her away."
"She left, Daniel.
She walked out of that hospital and she left you with a newborn—"
"Because you told her I didn't want her anymore." The words came out flat.
Certain.
I didn't know I knew it until I said it.
"That's what happened.
Isn't it."
Vanessa's mouth closed.
"You were there," I said.
"After Sophie was born.
You were Rachel's friend.
You were supposed to be her friend."
"I was trying to help you."
"You told her I wanted her gone.
And then you filed this in my name to make sure she couldn't come back."
"You don't understand what she was like after the birth.
She was unstable.
She was a danger to that child."
"She's been trying to reach Sophie for two years and you pushed my daughter into a swimming pool to make sure she never got the chance."
The room went very still.
Vanessa set her bag down on the chair.
She straightened her jacket.
When she looked up, her eyes were dry and her voice was steady and that was the most frightening thing about her — that she could stand in the middle of what she had done and feel nothing come apart.
"You can't prove any of that," she said.
My phone buzzed on the desk.
A photo.
From Rachel.
Timestamped two years ago.
A screenshot of a text conversation.
Vanessa's number at the top.
The messages below were short and precise and they ended with four words that made my vision go white at the edges.
*She signed the papers.*
May you like
I looked up.
"I think I can," I said.
