Chapter 8 - The Woman in the Photograph
Marcus almost dropped his phone.
Detective Cole took it.
The photograph had been sent less than one minute earlier.
Rachel’s wrists were bound.
Her mouth was covered with tape.
Her eyes were wide with terror.
Victoria stood behind her.
She held no visible weapon.
But the message beneath the photograph was enough.
You took my future from me.
Marcus called the number.
Victoria answered immediately.
“Now you’re paying attention.”
“Let Rachel go.”
“You always say that.”
“What?”
“Let Elena talk.”
Let Rachel go.”
Victoria laughed.
“You love telling people what they’re allowed to do.”
Marcus fought to keep his voice steady.
“What do you want?”
“A conversation.”
“You tried to drown my son.”
“You still don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Silence.
Marcus looked at Detective Cole.
Cole gestured for him to keep her talking.
Victoria finally spoke.
“Rachel gave birth to the life I should have had.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
“She carried my son.”
“She carried your dead wife’s baby.”
“Natalie was my wife.”
“I know.”
The bitterness in Victoria’s voice shocked him.
“I heard about Natalie every day.”
Marcus frowned.
“You barely knew her.”
“Oh, Marcus.”
Victoria laughed again.
“I knew everything about her.”
The call ended.
Marcus stared at the phone.
Detective Cole immediately contacted the local sheriff near Rachel’s home.
Officers were dispatched.
Ten minutes later, they reached the property.
The house was empty.
Rachel and Victoria were gone.
But they found something in the kitchen.
A photograph album.
Every page contained pictures of Marcus.
Natalie.
The wedding.
Natalie’s cancer treatment.
The funeral.
The fertility clinic.
Rachel’s pregnancy.
The baby’s birth.
Some photographs had come from newspapers.
Others had not.
One showed Marcus leaving the hospital the night Natalie died.
The photograph had been taken from across the parking lot.
Another showed Rachel entering the fertility clinic months before the pregnancy became public.
Detective Cole stared at the scanned images sent by the sheriff.
“She was watching you long before you met.”
Marcus’s skin went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“When did you first meet Victoria?”
“Six years ago.”
Cole pointed to a timestamp.
“This photo is eight years old.”
Marcus sat down.
For years, he had believed Victoria entered his life through mutual friends.
Now even that was questionable.
Cole opened another scanned image.
A young Victoria stood outside a university building.
Beside her was Natalie.
Marcus stared.
“What is that?”
“Do you recognize the location?”
“Yes.”
Natalie’s graduate school.
Cole enlarged the photograph.
Victoria and Natalie appeared to be talking.
“You said they barely knew each other.”
“That’s what Victoria told me.”
The sheriff found letters next.
Dozens of them.
Most were never sent.
They were addressed to Natalie.
Some were admiring.
Some were angry.
Some accused Natalie of stealing a life that belonged to someone else.
One line appeared repeatedly.
You took Marcus first.
Marcus stopped reading.
Detective Cole looked at him.
“Did you know Victoria before you married Natalie?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Marcus tried to remember.
University events.
Fundraisers.
Parties.
Faces blurred by time.
Then something surfaced.
A winter charity banquet eleven years earlier.
Natalie had introduced him to a quiet woman from her university.
Marcus remembered speaking with her for perhaps two minutes.
He remembered nothing else.
But he remembered the name.
Victoria.
His stomach twisted.
“She knew me before I knew her.”
Cole nodded.
“And she may have been obsessed with your wife for years.”
Marcus looked at the photograph.
Natalie was smiling.
Victoria was watching her.
Not the camera.
Her.
Marcus suddenly understood.
May you like
The pool incident had not begun that afternoon.
It had begun more than a decade earlier.
