Chapter 4: What Courtney Knew
They took me to the hospital in the ambulance.
Gerald Fitch followed in his sedan.
One of the officers stayed at the house.
Charles and Courtney were asked to remain on the premises.
I didn't look back as the ambulance doors closed.
The labor was long.
Fourteen hours, start to finish.
A nurse named Donna stayed close through most of it, and somewhere around the eleventh hour, when I was past the point of holding anything together, I said Lucas's name out loud without meaning to.
Donna didn't ask who he was.
She just took my hand and held it.
My daughter was born at 2:17 in the morning.
Six pounds, nine ounces.
A full head of dark hair, the same shade as Lucas's.
I named her Clara.
I held her against my chest in the quiet of that room and didn't speak for a long time.
Samantha Vance arrived at nine the next morning, while I was still in the hospital bed with Clara asleep in the bassinet beside me.
She set her bag on the chair and sat on the edge of it.
"How are you feeling?"
"Tell me what happened at the house," I said.
Samantha opened her folder.
"The officer found two items in Charles's jacket pocket that had not been there when he arrived.
A USB drive and a handwritten note with account numbers."
"Lucas's accounts?"
"The trust accounts.
The numbers were correct." She looked up.
"He had help getting those numbers, Victoria.
Someone gave them to him."
I looked at Clara.
"Courtney?"
"We don't know yet.
But here's what we do know." She turned a page.
"The liquidation request submitted to the bank was signed with your name.
The notary stamp belongs to a man named Paul Greer.
He works out of a small office in Utica.
We contacted him this morning."
"And?"
"He says he notarized a document for a woman matching Courtney's description.
Not yours."
The room was very quiet.
"She forged my signature," I said.
"She presented herself as you.
She had your ID — or a very good copy of it."
I thought about the last time I'd seen Courtney before that Tuesday morning.
It had been at my mother's funeral, eight months earlier, before I even knew she and Charles were together.
She had been warm.
Sympathetic.
She had hugged me at the graveside and said she was so sorry for my loss.
She had also asked to use my handbag to find a tissue.
I'd handed it to her without thinking.
"She copied my ID at my mother's funeral," I said.
Samantha set her pen down.
"That's what we believe."
I didn't say anything for a moment.
Clara made a small sound in her sleep and I reached over and rested my hand lightly on her back.
"What happens to Courtney now?"
"That depends on what she tells the investigators.
She was brought in for questioning this morning.
Separately from Charles." Samantha paused.
"There's something else.
When the officer separated them at the house, Courtney asked to speak privately.
She said she wanted to tell them something about Charles.
Something that had nothing to do with yesterday."
I looked up.
"What did she say?"
"She hasn't said it yet.
She's asked for an attorney first." Samantha closed the folder.
"But the investigator told me she seemed frightened.
Not of the consequences.
Of Charles."
The door to the room opened.
A nurse leaned in, checked the bassinet, and left again.
I looked at the ceiling.
"She laughed," I said.
"When my water broke.
She laughed at me."
"I know."
"I don't want to feel sorry for her."
"You don't have to," Samantha said.
"Not yet.
Let's see what she says first."
Clara stirred.
I lifted her carefully, settled her against my shoulder, and felt her small weight shift and still.
May you like
Whatever Courtney was about to tell that investigator — I had a feeling it was going to change the shape of everything I thought I understood about that Tuesday morning.
And about the years that had led up to it.
