Page 46 of The Perfect Deception
Beth, the least stubborn of the research team, raised her hand.Jessie took a seat beside her.
***
Jessie could have kicked herself.
In retrospect, the first thing that she should have looked into was the cascading nightmare that was Walter Winston’s life, which started with his obsession with Miriam Spaulding, followed soon thereafter by Vanessa’s suicide.
That she had so far only focused on the minutiae of his alibi, when her expertise was in profiling people, was near malpractice.She cut herself the tiniest bit of slack because her brain was operating almost exclusively on coffee, Hot Pockets, and adrenaline.
Initially, her review of the case file for Vanessa Winston’s death wasn’t very illuminating.Walter’s interviews afterward were pretty forthcoming.He admitted to his obsession with Miriam Spaulding and the likelihood that it had led to Vanessa’s suicide.But nothing he said suggested that he was upset with anyone other than himself.
He never mentioned any other couples that had in any way wronged him.He didn’t sound vengeful, just devastated.Of course that didn’t exonerate him.Vanessa died a year and a half ago.A lot could change in that time.His grief could have changed him in dark ways.But there was no proof of that.
She decided to move on to something else in order to clear her head and looked at the actual police report for Vanessa’s car crash.According to the investigating officers, her vehicle was driven off a cliff overlooking the ocean at such a high rate of speed that an accident seemed unlikely.There were no indications that she’d tried to hit the brakes.That jibed with the notes she’d left on people’s windshields the night before.
The car smashed into the rocks 200 feet below and exploded in a fireball before the husk of the vehicle eventually tumbled into the water, sinking into the deep darkness.Because of the craggy rocks and the giant waves that crashed against them, the police dispensed with having divers attempt to retrieve the body.It was just too dangerous.Walter Winston didn’t push them on the matter.
Jessie flipped the page and found herself looking at a photo of Vanessa Winston.She was attractive in an unassuming way, with wavy brown hair and sad gray eyes.Her eyebrows, even when smiling, were slightly furrowed.At 35, when she died, she was half a decade older than her husband.Jessie wondered if that added to her self-esteem issues after learning of her husband's obsession with Miriam.
She studied Vanessa’s background a little more, hoping for clues that might explain the possibility that her husband turned into a killer.They were partners in their company, Identity Protection Services, which had done booming business until her death.She was a regular triathlete who’d even won a few local competitions.She also, according to Walter’s interview, had a long history of depression and “other issues” that he didn’t specify.
Though there was no evidence to support it, she wondered if there was a chance that Walter, after having temporarily swapped into a less challenging marital arrangement, had gotten sick of dealing with his wife’s issues, killed her, and manufactured her suicide.That might explain why, when the police didn’t try to recover her body, he didn’t object.What if he was worried that they’d found proof that she was dead before the crash?
Suddenly a tingle shot up her spine, one she hadn’t felt in months.She knew the feeling well.It was her brain alerting her that she was onto something if she could just wrap her mind around it.It was right there if she could only look at it the right way.
She flipped back to the police report and then again to the photo of sad-eyed Vanessa.Could Walter, a fairly slight fellow, have successfully attacked his triathlete wife?Vanessa was strong.And nobody was ever found.Was it possible that Jessie had been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong person?
“Are we sure that Vanessa Winston is actually d—?”she began before Hannah cut her off.
“Check this out,” her sister blurted out excitedly, dropping a file with a photo on the table.It was of a woman Jessie didn’t recognize.
“Who’s this?”she asked.
“Her name is Wren Burch.She’s one of the three ‘bachelorettes’ that Elise Prager approved for life swaps with couples.Notice anything about her?”
Jessie studied the photo.The woman, in her thirties, had long blonde hair and blue eyes.She smiled broadly, but something about it didn’t feel genuine.It took a second for Jessie to get why.The woman’s brow was furrowed.
She looked up.
“This is Vanessa Winston.She’s still alive.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Everyone in the research department froze.
Hannah was the first to recover.“And that’s not all.‘Wren’s’ sole life swap was with Michael and Cassandra Dominik.”
“This fits,” Jessie said excitedly, spreading out her own file on her desk.Jamil and Beth had come over and were looking over her shoulder as she continued.“Vanessa Winston’s body was never found.Police deemed it too dangerous for divers to try to recover it.What if she picked that location to fake her death specifically for that reason, knowing how tough it would be?And Vanessa was a top level triathlete, the kind of person strong enough to move two drugged, full-sized men onto beds, not to mention two smaller women.”
Beth piped in.“So if she’s responsible for this, did she just choose the other three couples at random?”
Hannah let out a gasp as she seemed to remember something.Quickly, she rifled through Prager’s file until she came to one labeledNancy Manion.She opened it and tapped the photo.
“I didn’t pick up on this before.Take a look.”
They all did.The woman staring back at them had short, dark black hair, brown eyes, and stylish, black-framed glasses.She was wearing heavier makeup than either Vanessa or Wren, but the shape of the nose and eyes were increasingly familiar.One didn’t have to squint to see that Nancy Manion might be someone else entirely.
“Should we put these through facial recognition, Jamil?”Beth asked.
