Chapter 3 — Vanessa Calls
Daniel’s phone rang at 9:14 that night.
Vanessa.
He answered.
“Where are you?”
“At a motel.”
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
Daniel took a breath.
“I found the notebook.”
Silence.
“Sophie told me to.”
Vanessa’s voice changed.
“I shouldn’t have said anything to her.”
“Correct.”
Daniel did not soften it.
“Whatever is happening between us, telling Sophie you might never come home was cruel.”
Vanessa began crying.
“I know.”
“Who is Olivia?”
Vanessa remained quiet.
Then finally answered.
“The closest thing I had to a sister.”
When Vanessa was fifteen, her mother entered a long period of instability.
Vanessa spent nearly two years moving between relatives and a youth residential program called Briar House.
That was where she met Olivia Grant.
Olivia was sixteen.
Funny.
Protective.
Fearless in ways Vanessa wasn’t.
They became inseparable.
“She helped me survive that place,” Vanessa said.
Daniel listened.
Then one Friday morning, Olivia disappeared.
Staff told Vanessa that Olivia had chosen to move to another program.
They said she did not want Vanessa’s contact information.
Vanessa refused to believe it.
She wrote letters anyway.
None received replies.
Eventually one staff member told her:
“Olivia asked you to stop.”
Vanessa stopped.
“I thought she abandoned me.”
Daniel looked toward the letter.
“And now she says that wasn’t true.”
“No.”
“Why were you leaving us over this?”
Vanessa immediately answered:
“I wasn’t leaving you for Olivia.”
“You told Sophie you weren’t coming back.”
Vanessa started crying again.
Then said something Daniel did not expect.
“Because Olivia sent me copies of what I wrote about myself back then.”
Daniel frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa whispered:
“I found out I’ve been blaming the wrong person for twenty-five years.”