Chapter 4 - The Call Vanessa Didn't Want Him to Make
Brooke didn't answer.
Ryan left a short message.
“It's Ryan Mercer. This concerns Vanessa and videos of Emma. Call me, please.”
He gave no details.
At 10:47 a.m., Vanessa called Megan.
Megan put the phone on speaker.
“Is Ryan there?”
“Yes.”
“Give him the phone.”
“He can hear you.”
A pause.
Then Vanessa said, “Ryan, do not contact Brooke.”
Megan and Ryan looked at each other.
“I already did.”
Vanessa inhaled sharply.
“You had no right.”
“Why?”
“Because my work isn't your business.”
“Our daughter is in it.”
“She is not in my business.”
“You filmed her.”
“I filmed my life.”
“You labeled videos of her crying baseline footage.”
Silence.
Then Vanessa's voice changed.
More controlled.
“You're taking technical language and making it sound sinister.”
“What technique?”
No answer.
“What were you doing?”
“Trying to help.”
“Help who?”
Vanessa hung up.
Twenty minutes later, Ryan received an alert from the shared home internet account.
The upstairs desktop had connected.
Then the office laptop.
Ryan pictured Vanessa moving through the house.
Deleting.
Editing.
Cleaning.
His attorney had already advised him not to race back and provoke a confrontation. Instead, Ryan documented the alerts and contacted the child-welfare investigator assigned after the clinic report.
By afternoon, arrangements were made for Vanessa to stay elsewhere temporarily while the situation was assessed. Ryan's attorney also advised him to secure his own financial and personal accounts and to preserve shared records he was legally entitled to access.
That was when Ryan found the money.
Not missing money exactly.
Expenses.
Vanessa had always handled household subscriptions because she was better at tracking them.
Ryan opened the shared checking account.
Over four months there were recurring charges from an editing platform, a commercial cloud-storage service, a website host, and an online advertising service.
Together, nearly $3,800.
He had noticed the total household spending rising.
Vanessa had blamed groceries, formula, and rising insurance costs.
Ryan had never checked closely.
Megan sat across from him at the kitchen island.
“She restarted something.”
“Without telling me.”
“Apparently.”
Ryan searched the merchant name from one charge.
The billing descriptor led to a company he remembered Vanessa talking about years earlier.
BrightNest Media.
Brooke's company.
Not a parenting company.
A marketing consultancy.
Ryan felt a slow pressure behind his ribs.
Brooke finally called at 4:18.
Her voice was cautious.
“Ryan, I need you to tell me exactly why you're asking about Emma.”
Ryan told her what he'd seen.
Brooke was quiet so long he thought the call had dropped.
Then she said, “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“Vanessa told me the footage was controlled.”
“What does that mean?”
“She said Emma wasn't actually distressed.”
Ryan gripped the counter.
“Why did you need footage of my daughter distressed?”
May you like
Brooke's answer made Megan stop breathing.
“Because Vanessa was building a parenting brand.”
