Chapter 2 - THE PAPER TRAIL
My hands were shaking so violently I almost dropped the phone onto the granite counter.
“Bernice,” Clara whispered, her face pale as a sheet. “What did we just watch? Why is Veronica Vance handing your husband cash at three in the morning?”
“I don't know,” I said, my voice barely audible over the roaring sound in my ears. “Gideon is a senior logistics manager for a regional trucking company. He makes ninety thousand dollars a year. He has no reason to be signing legal documents for Veronica Vance in our dining room.”
I immediately tapped the download button on the cloud app, transferring every single motion-activated video file from the last six months directly onto an encrypted external flash drive I kept on my keychain, while simultaneously mirroring the storage to a private cloud server that only Clara and I could access.
Suddenly, my phone screen flashed with an incoming call.
Gideon.
I looked at Clara. She gave me a firm, resolute nod. “Answer it. See what story he’s telling now.”
I slid the green icon across the glass and put the call on speakerphone.
“Bernice!” Gideon’s voice exploded through the speaker, laced with a terrifying blend of anger and artificial panic. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been driving around the neighborhood for an hour! Why did you take Roger? What is wrong with you?”
I kept my voice flat, cold, and utterly devoid of emotion. “I’m with Roger. He’s safe.”
“Safe from what?” Gideon barked. “He was fine! He woke up, he wandered downstairs, and you completely lost your mind! You took our son out of the house in the middle of the night without telling me!”
“He didn't wander downstairs, Gideon,” I said slowly. “Roger told me you ordered him to stay on the kitchen floor.”
There was a sudden, heavy pause on the line. I could hear Gideon’s sharp, ragged breathing.
“He’s five years old, Bernice,” Gideon countered, his tone instantly shifting into that smooth, gaslighting register he had used for years whenever I questioned his finances or his long working hours. “He had a nightmare. He was confused. You’re taking the word of a tired toddler over your own husband? Bring him home right now so we can handle this like adults.”
“And Celina?” I asked softly. “Was she having a nightmare too?”
Another pause. Longer this time.
“Celina came over because she was upset about her boyfriend,” Gideon said, his voice dropping into a desperate, hurried pitch. “She knocked on the door at five in the morning. I let her lay down in the guest room because she was crying. Nothing happened, Bernice! I swear on Roger’s life, nothing happened between us!”
Swearing on our son’s life while he had left that same child to freeze on a tile floor. The absolute, unadulterated evil of it made my stomach curdle.
“I know about the schedule, Gideon,” I lied smoothly, letting him think I knew more than I did. “I know Celina leaves at two in the morning. And I know who comes through the front door at three.”
The line went completely, terrifyingly silent.
No denial. No angry outburst. Just the dead, heavy atmosphere of a man who realized his trap door had just opened beneath his feet.
“What did you say?” Gideon whispered, his voice stripped of all its former confidence.
“I have the video files, Gideon,” I said, every word like an iron spike being driven into his casket. “I have every single frame from the front porch, the hallway, and the dining room. I know about Veronica Vance. I know about the silver briefcase. And I know about the stacks of cash.”
“Bernice... listen to me very carefully,” Gideon said, his voice dropping an octave into a low, murderous hiss that sent a chill straight down my spine. “You don't know what you’re looking at. You need to delete those files right now. Do you hear me? Delete them and bring Roger back to the house. If you take those videos to anyone—if you even show them to your sister—you are going to put all three of us in a hole six feet under.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I’m trying to save your life, you foolish woman!” Gideon snarled. “You think this is about an affair? You think this is about Celina? You have no idea who Veronica Vance works for, or what happens to people who look inside those silver briefcases! Delete the clips, Bernice. Bring my son home in thirty minutes, or I swear to God, you will never see him again.”
The line went dead.
Clara stared at me, her eyes wide with terror. “Bernice... oh my god. He’s insane. He’s completely out of his mind.”
“He’s not insane,” I said, standing up from the kitchen table, my eyes burning with a dark, ruthless focus I didn't know I possessed. “He’s terrified. Because he knows I have the one thing that can destroy him.”
I picked up my coat and pulled my purse over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Clara asked, springing up from her seat. “You can't go back to that house! He might be waiting for you with a weapon!”
“I’m not going back to the house,” I said, looking toward the hallway where my little boy was sleeping soundly under the heavy blanket. “I’m going to see the one person who can tell me exactly what Veronica Vance was buying from my husband at three o'clock in the morning.”
May you like
“Who?”
“Her husband,” I said grimly. “Judge Arthur Vance.”
