Chapter 13 - The Woman Who Brought the Birthday Cake
Vivienne Cross was the kind of friend who always remembered other people's important dates. She had appeared at Emily's hospital room with flowers after Lily was born. She had taken photographs at the child's first birthday, taught her to tie a ribbon at three, and bought Button the rabbit after Lily fell and scraped both knees at the park.
Emily could tolerate the idea that Marcus had lied to her. She couldn't yet imagine that Vivienne had been involved in planning the lies.
"There must be another Vivienne," she said when Anton gave her the name.
"We haven't verified everything Rafe told investigators," Anton replied. "We do know Cross is listed as a director of two companies associated with the suspicious transfers. We also know she visited Rafe's office shortly before he disappeared."
Emily went into the pantry and sat on a step stool because the kitchen had suddenly become too large. The shelves smelled of flour and cinnamon. Vivienne had once made Lily a butterfly-shaped cake using cinnamon buttercream. Emily remembered laughing when the wings slid off during the birthday song. She remembered the photographs, the gifts, the woman she'd called when she couldn't get Marcus to answer his phone.
She called Mara rather than Vivienne. Together they reviewed old messages Emily had preserved. Vivienne had frequently asked apparently caring questions about Emily's appointments, Lily's school schedule, and her friendship with Luca after the gala. The questions had seemed ordinary at the time. Emily could now see how valuable the answers might have been to someone coordinating surveillance.
"Don't turn every memory into evidence of betrayal," Mara cautioned. "We'll identify the communications that can actually be verified. What you feel about the rest is yours."
Emily appreciated the distinction. She no longer had to prove that she'd been foolish to prove somebody else had betrayed her.
Two days later, investigators interviewed Emily about Vivienne. They showed her records of several meetings and asked whether she'd observed unusual conduct. Emily described only what she remembered. Vivienne had once asked to use Marcus's printer during a holiday dinner. She'd helped file tax forms for a small charity project. She had carried a thick envelope out of his office the day he returned from an overseas trip. None of it had seemed remarkable.
Then the investigator showed Emily a photograph recovered from Rafe's files. It depicted Vivienne and Marcus outside the Philadelphia fundraiser. In the background, a volunteer in borrowed heels struggled with a box of children's books.
Emily recognized herself.
"She met me through Marcus," Emily whispered. "I thought it was the other way around."
Vivienne had been introduced to Emily months after she started dating Marcus. She'd joked that she'd never met a woman capable of keeping such a difficult man in line. The friendship had been part of the operation from the beginning, or at least the investigators now had documents suggesting it had served that purpose.
Meanwhile, Marcus spent the morning in an interview room with his attorney. Sorrento's organization had stopped returning his calls. His accounts were frozen pending investigation, and Vivienne had sent a message warning him that he'd become a liability. For the first time, the man who had tried to frighten Emily understood what it meant to be watched by people who did not care whether he lived comfortably or at all.
He offered investigators a partial account of the trust scheme. He admitted that Rafe introduced him to Emily after discovering she'd spent an evening with Luca. He claimed he had genuinely fallen in love with her and had believed Lily was his child until recently. But an older email recovered from his business archives complicated that claim: he had asked Vivienne to investigate Luca and Emily's relationship before he proposed.
The investigators did not accuse him of inventing every affection he'd ever displayed. They asked a narrower question. Had he known the child might be Luca's while helping his associates use her name in financial documents?
Marcus requested a break.
Back at the estate, Emily learned that Vivienne had attempted to call her from an unfamiliar number. Mara advised her to preserve the voicemail. When they listened, Vivienne sounded almost affectionate.
"Em, darling, this has gotten completely out of hand. Marcus was never supposed to frighten you. I can explain all of it. Come somewhere private. Just you and me, like old times."
Luca listened with his jaw clenched. Emily replayed the message and noticed a faint clatter at the beginning: two quick metallic taps, then music. A familiar melody played beneath Vivienne's voice. Emily had heard it for years in the lobby of a private women's club where Vivienne took her for birthday lunches.
She gave the recording to the investigators, who obtained independent information about Vivienne's movements. Emily did not go to the club, and Luca did not set a trap of his own. They waited while investigators followed the evidence.
That evening, Sofia found Emily in Lily's room, replacing a button on the rabbit's crooked ear. Emily was crying, but she kept sewing because it gave her hands something useful to do.
"She knew every birthday," Emily said. "She knew my mother's anniversary. I thought she was family."
Sofia sat beside her. "Someone can learn everything about you and still fail to love you. That's their failure, not a debt you owe them."
Lily appeared in the doorway and asked whether Button was sick again. Emily wiped her face and held up the repaired rabbit. "He's had a difficult day. But he's going to be all right."
Lily studied her mother's expression with the perceptiveness Emily wished she hadn't needed. "Are you?"
Emily pulled her into her lap. "I think I will be. I'm getting help."
May you like
By morning, Vivienne's polite invitation had become irrelevant. Investigators executed court-authorized searches at several offices linked to the laundering scheme. One search recovered a locked cabinet filled with duplicated identification documents, original trust paperwork, and a paper file labeled with Lily's name.
Inside the file was a plan for discrediting Emily if she attempted to expose the accounts. At the bottom, in Vivienne's handwriting, were the words: USE THE CHILD TO CONTROL BOTH FATHERS.
