Chapter 5: What Sophie Told Ellen
I called Ellen from the car, parked two streets away from the house with the engine running.
"Tell me," I said.
Ellen's voice was quiet, careful.
She was making sure Sophie couldn't hear from the other room.
"She told me about the cabinet under the bathroom sink," Ellen said.
"She said Vanessa keeps a small brown bottle in there.
She said Vanessa told her it was vitamins.
But Sophie saw her put it in Daddy's coffee one morning when she thought Sophie was still asleep."
I didn't speak.
"Daniel."
"I heard you."
"She's seven.
She doesn't understand what she saw.
But she remembered it because Vanessa looked at her afterward and said, 'That's our little secret, isn't it?' And Sophie said Vanessa's voice scared her when she said it."
I pressed my hand against the steering wheel.
"Is the bottle still there?" I said.
"Sophie thinks so.
She said Vanessa never moved it."
I drove back to the house.
Vanessa's light was on upstairs.
I could hear her still on the phone with her lawyer, the murmur of her voice through the ceiling.
I went to the downstairs bathroom first.
Nothing under that sink but cleaning supplies.
Then I went upstairs to the main bathroom.
I waited until Vanessa's voice paused, then moved quickly.
The cabinet under the sink.
Spare towels.
A box of cold medicine.
A hair dryer.
And behind the hair dryer, pushed to the back — a small brown glass bottle with no label.
I took a photo of it in place.
Then I picked it up with a hand towel, wrapped it, and put it in my coat pocket.
I was back downstairs before Vanessa finished her call.
She came down twenty minutes later.
Her face had reset again — composed, almost serene, the way it got when she'd made a decision.
"David thinks we should talk," she said.
"All three of us.
Tomorrow.
He says a lot of this can be resolved if we approach it calmly."
"I'm sure he does."
"Daniel, I know you're frightened.
I know Carol filled your head with terrible things.
But I am your wife.
I have been faithful to you, I have been present for Sophie even when she made it nearly impossible, and I deserve the chance to answer these accusations properly.
Not like this.
Not in our kitchen at midnight."
She sounded so reasonable.
That was the thing about Vanessa.
She always sounded so reasonable.
"Okay," I said.
"We'll talk tomorrow."
She nodded.
Something relaxed in her shoulders.
"Thank you.
That's all I'm asking."
She went back upstairs.
I sat at the kitchen table until I heard the bedroom door close.
Then I took out my phone and called a number I'd saved three days ago but hadn't used yet.
It rang twice.
"Dr.
Paulson," said the voice.
"It's Daniel Mercer.
I'm sorry to call so late.
I have something I need you to test as soon as possible." I looked at the wrapped bottle in front of me.
"I can be at your office when you open tomorrow morning."
A pause.
"Can you tell me what we're looking at?"
"I don't know yet," I said.
"That's what scares me."
I didn't sleep that night.
I sat at the table and thought about every morning Vanessa had handed me a coffee cup.
How she'd always insisted on making it herself.
How she'd always brought it to me already poured.
How I'd been tired for months and assumed it was work.
How Sophie had watched and said nothing because she'd been told it was a secret.
By the time the sun came up, I had stopped being frightened.
May you like
I had become something quieter than that.
And Vanessa, upstairs in our bed, had no idea that the bottle was already gone — or that by nine o'clock the next morning, it would be in a laboratory.
