Chapter 2 - THE SECOND PHONE
The second phone did not belong to Vanessa.
At least not officially.
That was the first thing Daniel learned when Detective Mara Collins placed it inside a clear evidence sleeve on the conference table.
The device was inexpensive, black, and almost new. No case. No saved contacts under real names. No family photographs. No banking apps. Nothing that belonged to an ordinary life.
Just messages.
Vanessa sat at the far end of the table with a resort-provided blanket over her shoulders. Her attorney had not arrived yet. She had stopped crying.
Daniel noticed that too.
Detective Collins looked at both of them.
“This phone was found in the service stairwell approximately twelve feet from the baby monitor.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“That doesn’t make it mine.”
“No one said it was.”
Daniel watched her.
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You answered before she accused you.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
Detective Collins continued.
“The phone is locked. We’ll obtain proper authority to examine it.”
Daniel asked, “Can you tell who owns it?”
“Not yet.”
Paul Mercer, the resort security director, stood by the wall.
“We also checked service access.”
Daniel turned.
“And?”
“A guest used the staff elevator at 10:58 this morning.”
“The man with the red scarf?”
“Possibly.”
“Name?”
“The elevator requires a staff key card, not a guest room card.”
Daniel frowned.
“So a staff member let him up?”
“Or he had a staff card.”
“Can you see which one?”
Mercer hesitated.
“The system shows card 417.”
“Who has 417?”
“No one right now.”
Daniel stared.
“What does that mean?”
“It was reported missing yesterday.”
Vanessa shifted in her chair.
Detective Collins noticed.
“Mrs. Reed, do you know anything about a missing resort access card?”
“No.”
“Do you know the man Emma described?”
Vanessa looked at Daniel, then back at Collins.
“I talked to a lot of people today.”
Emma was seated in another room.
Daniel hated that the woman who had caught Lily out of the air was being questioned like a suspect because his wife had accused her first.
Collins asked, “Did you hug a man near the service elevator?”
Vanessa gave a small laugh.
“Is hugging illegal now?”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t remember.”
Daniel stared at her.
“You hugged someone and don’t remember who?”
“We’re at a resort. There are people we know here.”
“Name one person you hugged this morning.”
Vanessa looked at him sharply.
“Stop.”
“No.”
“Daniel.”
“No.”
He heard the anger in his own voice and lowered it.
“I watched you lie about where Emma was.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“I panicked.”
“You said she was upstairs.”
“I thought she was.”
“The camera shows you at the window.”
“I was trying to stop Lily from falling.”
“How did the carrier get there?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel leaned back.
He almost admired the sentence.
Not because it was convincing.
Because it attempted to erase the entire minute before the fall.
Detective Collins interrupted.
“Mrs. Reed, I’m going to advise you not to speculate.”
Vanessa looked at her.
“I want my lawyer.”
“That is your right.”
The interview stopped.
Daniel walked out into the resort hallway.
Christmas garlands still hung from the railings even though it was February. A stone fireplace burned in the lobby. Guests walked past carrying skis, laughing too loudly, unaware that Daniel’s vacation had become an investigation.
Emma sat alone near a window.
A resort employee had given her dry clothes.
She looked smaller in them.
Daniel approached.
She stood immediately.
“How’s Lily?”
“Okay.”
Emma’s shoulders dropped.
“Really?”
“The doctor wants to keep watching her, but scans are clean.”
Emma covered her face.
For a moment Daniel thought she was crying.
Then she whispered, “Thank God.”
Daniel stood there awkwardly.
“Emma.”
She looked up.
“I’m sorry.”
Her expression changed.
“For what?”
“For not knowing who to believe.”
“You saw your baby in the snow.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No. But it makes sense.”
Daniel sat across from her.
“Tell me about the man.”
Emma glanced toward the conference room.
“The red scarf?”
“Yes.”
“I saw him once before.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?”
“In the lodge kitchen.”
Daniel frowned.
“Our kitchen?”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing there?”
“Talking to Mrs. Reed.”
“What were they saying?”
“I didn’t hear most of it.”
“Most?”
Emma hesitated.
“I heard her say, ‘Daniel cannot know until after the weekend.’”
Daniel felt cold.
“What did he say?”
“Something about papers.”
“What papers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Vanessa see you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Emma lowered her voice.
“But later she asked whether I’d been in the kitchen.”
“What did you say?”
“That I was making Lily’s bottle.”
“Then?”
“She said I should stop wandering through rooms when I wasn’t needed.”
Daniel leaned back.
Vanessa had never spoken to Emma that way in front of him.
“How long has this been happening?”
Emma looked at her hands.
“A few weeks.”
“What has?”
“She’s been different.”
“Different how?”
“Watching me.”
Daniel frowned.
“Watching you?”
“She asks what I’m doing even when she can see me. She checks my phone sometimes.”
“She checks your phone?”
“She says she’s making sure I’m not taking pictures of Lily.”
Daniel felt anger rise.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Emma looked embarrassed.
“Because she’s your wife.”
That answer hurt.
“She told me not to create problems between you.”
“She said that?”
“Yes.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“What else?”
Emma looked toward the lobby.
“Do you remember when you asked me to find Lily’s passport last week?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t in the home office.”
“I know. Vanessa found it later.”
Emma shook her head.
“Mrs. Reed didn’t find it.”
Daniel stopped.
“What?”
“I did.”
“Where?”
“In a locked drawer in her dressing room.”
Daniel stared.
“How did you open a locked drawer?”
“It wasn’t locked when I found it. I went in because she told me Lily’s winter gloves were there.”
“What else was inside?”
Emma swallowed.
“Copies of bank statements.”
Daniel felt his stomach tighten.
“What bank statements?”
“I don’t know exactly. There were transfers.”
“From where?”
“One account had Lily’s name.”
The lobby noise seemed to disappear.
“Lily doesn’t have a checking account.”
“No. It looked like a trust.”
Daniel sat very still.
His mother had created a trust for Lily shortly after the baby was born.
Daniel knew it existed.
He had not managed it personally.
Vanessa did.
His mother had wanted the money separate from Daniel’s business interests.
“How much?”
“I only saw one page.”
“How much?”
Emma whispered, “Nine hundred thousand dollars.”
Daniel’s mouth went dry.
“Transferred where?”
“A company. Snow something.”
“Snow what?”
“I don’t remember.”
Daniel stood.
Emma did too.
“What happened after you saw it?”
“I heard Mrs. Reed behind me.”
Daniel’s skin prickled.
“What did she say?”
“She asked why I was reading private papers.”
“And?”
“I told her I was looking for the passport.”
“Did you mention the transfer?”
“No.”
“Did she know you saw it?”
“I think so.”
Daniel looked toward the conference room where Vanessa sat behind a closed door.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
Daniel felt the pieces begin to move.
Not fit.
Not yet.
But move.
Vanessa had known Emma saw something.
Emma was supposed to tell Daniel.
Then, before she could, Vanessa accused her of dropping Lily from a window.
Detective Collins approached from the hall.
“Mr. Reed.”
Daniel turned.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Yes.”
“Does the name White Summit Holdings mean anything to you?”
Daniel stared.
Emma whispered, “That’s it.”
Collins looked between them.
“What?”
Emma said, “That was the company on the transfer.”
Daniel felt cold.
“No,” he said. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Collins held up a printed page.
“The second phone isn’t unlocked yet, but resort Wi-Fi logs show it connected using an email account.”
“What account?”
“whitesummit.operations.”
Daniel looked at Vanessa’s closed door.
The company Emma saw receiving money from Lily’s trust was connected to the burner phone found near the lodge stairwell.
Detective Collins continued.
“We searched public corporate records. White Summit Holdings owns property.”
“What property?”
Collins looked toward Paul Mercer.
“A chalet.”
Daniel waited.
“At this resort.”
His pulse jumped.
“Which chalet?”
Mercer answered.
“Residence 18.”
Daniel knew it.
Everyone did.
Residence 18 was the massive glass-and-stone home at the highest point of the resort, visible from half the mountain.
He had seen it that morning.
“Who stays there?”
Mercer said, “It’s not part of our rental inventory. Privately owned.”
“By White Summit?”
“Yes.”
Daniel asked, “Who controls the company?”
Collins replied, “The registered manager is an attorney named Julian Cross.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
Emma saw his face.
“You know him.”
Daniel did.
Julian Cross was not a stranger.
He was Daniel’s college roommate.
His oldest friend.
And the man who had managed Daniel’s family estate since Daniel’s father died.
Vanessa had hugged him in the hallway.
Julian controlled the company receiving money from Lily’s trust.
Daniel looked through the glass conference-room door at his wife.
Vanessa was staring back.
She could not hear them.
But somehow she knew.
May you like
For the first time since Lily fell, Vanessa looked afraid of Daniel discovering something other than the truth about the window.
And Daniel understood the fall might have been designed to bury a secret that began long before the snowstorm.
