Chapter 3 - The Dress Was Never Worth Ten Thousand Dollars
The officers arrived at 7:46 p.m.
Derek immediately tried to take control.
“My wife is having an emotional episode. Her brothers are interfering with a private disagreement. This is a simple matter involving damaged property.”
Officer Reynolds, a middle-aged woman with sharp eyes, looked at Sophie.
“Is the child injured?”
Luke stepped aside to let her approach.
Sophie instinctively moved closer to me.
“It's okay, sweetheart,” I whispered.
Officer Reynolds examined the red marks around her wrist.
“Who caused this?”
Sophie pointed at Vanessa.
“She grabbed me.”
Vanessa immediately protested.
“I barely touched her!”
The officer raised one hand.
“Let's establish what happened before deciding what anyone did.”
She took separate statements.
Derek described Sophie as a difficult child who had deliberately destroyed expensive property. Vanessa supported his account.
But neither could explain why the dress had apparently been delivered less than fifteen minutes after Vanessa arrived.
Ethan showed the officer the timestamped security footage from our front porch.
Derek had disabled the indoor cameras three months earlier, claiming they were unnecessary.
He had forgotten about the exterior system.
“I only recovered the footage from the porch camera,” Ethan explained. “I haven't accessed anything inside the house.”
Derek glared at him.
“You hacked my security system?”
“No. I accessed a camera account Claire legally owns.”
The footage showed Vanessa arriving with scissors.
It also showed her leaving the house twenty minutes later without the silver dress.
The officer requested that the footage be preserved.
Vanessa began crying.
“I didn't mean for this to happen.”
Derek turned toward her.
“What are you talking about?”
She looked at him, then at me.
“Claire, please. You don't understand.”
I almost laughed.
Three months ago, I had been the woman who worried about making Derek's favorite dinner. I had believed his excuses about business trips and late meetings.
Now his mistress was begging me for understanding.
“Explain it,” I said.
Vanessa hesitated.
Then she admitted that she had brought the dress into the house herself. She had cut it with scissors because she wanted Derek to believe Sophie had damaged it.
Why?
Because she wanted Derek to finally choose her.
“He promised me we would have a future,” she sobbed. “But every time I asked him to leave you, he said he needed more time.”
Derek grabbed her arm.
“Shut up!”
Officer Reynolds immediately stepped between them.
“Don't touch her.”
Vanessa pulled away.
Then came the revelation that made my blood run cold.
“She told me she didn't want me here,” Vanessa said, pointing at Sophie. “She said her father should be with someone younger.”
I looked at my daughter.
Sophie began crying again.
“I never said that!”
I knelt.
“I know, sweetheart.”
Derek rubbed his forehead.
“This is unbelievable. Claire, can we please handle this privately?”
I stood.
“No.”
He stared.
“What?”
“You wanted to make our daughter pay ten thousand dollars for something she didn't do. You threatened to throw us out. You let another woman frighten an eight-year-old child in her own home.”
I paused.
“There is nothing private left to discuss.”
Officer Reynolds explained that the allegations involving Sophie's wrist would be documented and referred for appropriate follow-up. She also advised us to avoid further confrontation.
Derek was not arrested that night.
But the report existed.
And so did the evidence.
After the officers left, Vanessa grabbed her purse.
“Derek, we're leaving.”
He looked at her in disbelief.
“Where do you think you're going?”
“Somewhere I don't have to defend myself.”
She walked out.
Derek turned toward me.
“You've humiliated me.”
I stared at him.
“You humiliated yourself.”
Then Marcus opened his briefcase.
“I think there's something else you should know.”
He placed several financial statements on the table.
Over the previous six months, $186,000 had disappeared from a business account connected to Derek's company.
And some of the payments had gone to a luxury apartment leased under Vanessa's name.
Derek's face drained of color.
“That has nothing to do with this.”
Marcus looked at him.
“Maybe not. But it has everything to do with your future.”
Then Daniel received a text.
He read it once.
His expression changed.
“What?” I asked.
He turned his phone toward me.
It was a message from a woman whose name I recognized.
Derek's mother.
The message contained just seven words.
May you like
Claire, you need to know what Derek did.
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