Chapter 11 - The Secret in the Well
Two hours later, our house was illuminated by the flashing red and blue strobe lights of half a dozen squad cars and an ambulance.
Vesper was loaded into the back of an armored police cruiser in heavy steel handcuffs and leg shackles, her head bandaged where I had struck her. She didn't look at me as they slammed the door shut; she was mumbling incoherently to herself, rocking back and forth.
Detective Miller stood in the kitchen with Declan and me, taking down our preliminary statements while forensic technicians photographed the shattered patio doors, the tire iron, and the broken glass.
"She’s facing aggravated burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, and felony violation of a protective order on top of the malicious wounding," Detective Miller said, closing his notebook with a snap. "She won't see bail, Mrs. Avery. Not with her record and this level of premeditation."
"Her name is Vesper," I said softly, sitting wrapped in a thermal blanket Declan had placed over my shoulders. "She isn't an Avery anymore."
"There’s one more thing," Miller said, glancing toward the front door. "Her car was abandoned two blocks away in an empty cul-de-sac. When the patrol officers searched the trunk, they found something unusual."
Declan looked up. "What did they find?"
"A locked metal fireproof lockbox," Miller said. "It had your name on it, Sloane. Written in black marker with old, faded masking tape. We had the bomb squad inspect it first, obviously. It’s safe. Just documents."
Miller walked out to his cruiser and returned carrying a battered gray metal cash box. He set it down on the kitchen island between us. The lock had been pried open by the officers.
With trembling hands, I lifted the lid.
Inside was not jewelry or cash.
It was a stack of yellowed, handwritten diaries belonging to my mother, dating back from nineteen ninety-two to nineteen ninety-nine. Beneath the diaries lay a thick, confidential adoption dossier stamped with the seal of the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Social Services.
I pulled out the dossier, my heart racing with an inexplicable dread.
I opened the front cover.
The document was not about me. It was about Vesper.
*Subject: Vesper Doe. Born: March 14, 1996. Placement: Closed private adoption to Thomas and Evelyn Avery.*
I stared at the paper, stunned. Vesper was adopted? My parents had always claimed we were both biological sisters, born two years apart at the same hospital.
Then I read the attached psychiatric background of Vesper’s biological mother.
*Biological Mother: Candace Vance.*
*Status: Incarcerated for life without parole at Fluvanna Correctional Center for the murder of her two older siblings and attempted patricide.*
My breath stopped entirely.
Declan leaned over my shoulder, reading the name. "Vance? Sloane... Candace Vance is Frank Vance’s estranged younger sister."
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Before the horror of that realization could even settle into my mind, my eyes drifted back into the open metal box. At the very bottom lay a cassette tape, labeled in my mother’s elegant cursive handwriting from twenty-four years ago:
*The Well Behind the Old Cabin — What Vesper did to the third child.*
