Chapter 6 - THE DETECTIVE'S SECRET
Sofia watched the video again.
And again.
Each time, the same terrible questions returned.
Why had Detective Bennett closed the investigation?
Why had he never found Ruth Mercer?
And why had he remained close to the Valmont family for more than two decades?
She went downstairs with the phone clenched in her hand.
Adrien was speaking with Bennett in the study.
Sofia stopped in the doorway.
“I want to ask you something.”
Both men turned.
Bennett smiled faintly.
“Of course.”
Sofia held up the phone.
“Why did you close my kidnapping case in 2006?”
The detective's expression changed.
Adrien frowned.
“Marcus?”
Bennett slowly removed his glasses.
“Who told you that?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
Sofia stepped into the room.
“Someone sent me a video of my mother. She said Vivian had help.”
Bennett's face went pale.
Adrien stood.
“Marcus, answer her.”
The detective looked toward the window.
“I didn't close the case.”
Sofia stared at him.
“Then why does the message say you did?”
“Because someone wants you to believe I was responsible.”
Adrien crossed his arms.
“Explain.”
Bennett sighed.
“In 2006, I was removed from the investigation.”
“Why?” Sofia asked.
“Because I refused to accept the official conclusion.”
The room fell silent.
Bennett continued.
“The department received evidence suggesting Isabella had died shortly after the kidnapping. A child's remains were discovered in an abandoned building outside Baltimore.”
Sofia felt sick.
Adrien gripped the back of a chair.
“I remember.”
Bennett nodded.
“DNA testing at the time was inconclusive. But someone pressured the department to declare the case resolved.”
“Who?” Sofia whispered.
Bennett looked at Adrien.
“A senior official named Commissioner Harold Price.”
Adrien frowned.
“Price was a family friend.”
“Yes.”
“And Vivian knew him.”
Bennett nodded.
“Very well.”
Sofia looked between them.
“So the police told my father I was dead?”
“Not officially,” Bennett answered. “But they encouraged him to accept that possibility.”
Adrien lowered his head.
“I never accepted it.”
Bennett continued.
“I believed the remains had been planted. I challenged the report and requested additional testing. Two weeks later, I was reassigned.”
Sofia stared at him.
“Why didn't you tell my family?”
“I tried.”
Adrien looked up.
“What?”
“I sent letters. I requested meetings. But someone intercepted my correspondence.”
Eleanor appeared in the doorway.
Her face was pale.
“I remember those letters.”
Everyone turned.
She entered slowly.
“Vivian told me they were from a detective who had become obsessed with the case. She said you were making accusations without evidence.”
Bennett closed his eyes.
“That explains it.”
Sofia looked at Eleanor.
“You believed her again?”
Eleanor's eyes filled with tears.
“Yes.”
Sofia turned away.
She was beginning to understand how Vivian had operated.
Not through violence alone.
Through doubt.
Through fear.
Through carefully selected lies.
She had convinced grieving people to distrust one another.
And every time someone questioned her, she had used their pain against them.
Bennett reached into his briefcase.
“There is something I kept.”
He placed an old cassette tape on the desk.
Adrien stared.
“What is that?”
“A recording from 2005.”
Bennett explained that an anonymous caller had contacted the police claiming to know where Isabella was being held.
The call had been traced to a pay phone near Blackwood.
Before investigators could reach the location, the caller disappeared.
Bennett had preserved a copy of the recording.
He had never been able to identify the woman.
Adrien found an old cassette player in the study.
They inserted the tape.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman's frightened voice spoke.
“The little girl is alive. Her name is Isabella. They call her Sofia now.”
Sofia covered her mouth.
The woman continued.
“She's being kept with a nurse. The family thinks she's dead. You have to get her out.”
A man's voice interrupted.
“Who is responsible?”
The woman hesitated.
Then whispered:
“Vivian Valmont.”
Sofia gripped the desk.
The caller began crying.
“But there's someone else. Someone inside the police department.”
Bennett leaned forward.
The tape crackled.
The woman said:
“Commissioner Price is being paid to keep the investigation quiet.”
Then a door slammed.
The woman gasped.
A man's voice shouted.
The recording ended.
Adrien stared at Bennett.
“Why didn't this become evidence?”
“It did,” Bennett answered. “But the original disappeared from the department's evidence room.”
Sofia looked at him.
“And you kept a copy.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Bennett's eyes softened.
“Because I had a daughter your age.”
He paused.
“She died of leukemia when she was six.”
Sofia's anger faded slightly.
Bennett looked toward the photograph of Isabella on the desk.
“I couldn't bear the thought of another father losing his child because someone in authority refused to do the right thing.”
The room fell silent.
Sofia understood grief.
She also understood that grief did not automatically make someone trustworthy.
But for the first time, she believed Bennett might genuinely want to help.
That afternoon, Bennett received a call from the hospital.
Rebecca Shaw had regained consciousness.
She was asking for Sofia.
Adrien insisted on accompanying her.
At the hospital, Rebecca lay pale and exhausted beneath white sheets.
Sofia approached the bed.
“Rebecca?”
The nurse opened her eyes.
“You're alive.”
Sofia smiled sadly.
“So are you.”
Rebecca reached for her hand.
“I need to tell you something before they find me again.”
Bennett stepped closer.
“Who attacked you?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I didn't see the driver.”
“Who sent you to Sofia?”
“No one. I found her after seeing a photograph online.”
Sofia frowned.
“What photograph?”
Rebecca looked at Adrien.
“The one your security team circulated when you began investigating her identity.”
Adrien went still.
He had authorized a confidential background search.
Only a few trusted employees had received Sofia's photograph.
Someone had leaked it.
Rebecca continued.
“Claire was never supposed to leave Blackwood. But in 2015, when the facility closed, they transferred her.”
“Where?” Sofia asked.
Rebecca hesitated.
“To a private residence.”
“Whose residence?”
Rebecca's eyes filled with tears.
“Vivian's.”
Adrien stared at her.
“My sister died in 2015.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
The room went silent.
Rebecca gripped Sofia's hand.
“Vivian staged her death.”
Sofia felt the floor shift beneath her.
Rebecca leaned closer.
“And she's been living under another name ever since.”
Bennett asked quietly.
“What name?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Victoria Hale.”
Adrien's face drained of color.
Because Victoria Hale was not a stranger.
She was the chief executive of the Valmont Foundation.
A woman who had attended family dinners for years.
May you like
A woman Eleanor trusted.
And the woman who had personally approved Sofia's security arrangements that morning.
