Chapter 9
The plan is this.
Rachel lays it out on her coffee table with the precision of someone who's been building it for two years.
Printed timelines. A map with pins — eleven cities where Vanessa has operated.
A list of aliases with photos attached, all clearly the same woman in different hair colors, different styles, different lives.
"She relocates every three to six months," Rachel says. "New city, new identity. She arrives, she finds the wife first — always the wife — and she builds the friendship over weeks before ever making a move on the husband. The friendship IS the access."
"How does she choose?" I ask.
Sadie answers. She's been quiet since the introduction — watching, the way photographers do.
"Vulnerability. She looks for women who are isolated in some way.
New to a city. Busy with work. Small social circles.
Women whose husbands are accessible — regular schedules, predictable patterns, the kind of men who say yes when a woman asks for help. "
I think of myself. New to Hartford three years ago.
Starting my bakery from scratch. Working sixteen-hour days.
Liam was my only real anchor, and he worked long hours too.
I was exactly the kind of woman who'd attach fast to a new friend — especially one who showed up at a photography workshop and laughed at my jokes and offered to help me style a cake shoot.
"She picked me because I was lonely," I say.
"She picked all of us because we were lonely," Nina says. She's refilled her coffee three times. I count — it's something I've noticed about her, the counting. "She has a radar for it."
* * *
"Here's what we need from you," Rachel says, turning to face me directly. "Three things."
She holds up one finger. "One. Her current address. We have her old ones — eleven of them. But we don't know where she's living now. You do."
I nod. I know Kate's apartment. I have the key.
Second finger. "Two. Confirmation of her current legal identity. We need to know if 'Kate' has a last name on a lease, a driver's license, utility bills. Something official that ties to Vanessa Reid."
"I can look. I've been in her apartment — I was there Wednesday."
"Good." Third finger. "Three. A location where we can confront her. All of us. Together. We don't want a chase. We want a conversation — one she can't walk away from."
"What does that look like?" I ask.
Lauren uncrosses her legs and leans forward.
The marketing VP energy is palpable — she's been building strategy around this for months.
"We've discussed options. Public is risky — she could scream, make a scene, play victim.
Private is better. Somewhere she feels safe.
Somewhere she won't expect seven women to be waiting. "
"My apartment," I say.
Everyone looks at me.
"She comes over all the time. Sunday brunch — she already said she'd bring bagels. If I invite her over and you're all there..." I trail off. "But not yet. Not this Sunday. I need more time."
"How much time?" Rachel asks.
"Two weeks. Give me two weeks to get her address confirmed, check her IDs, and make sure she doesn't suspect anything. And I need to..." I swallow. "I need to deal with my husband. Before the confrontation. I can't face her in a room while he doesn't know I know."
Rachel nods. "That's fair. Two weeks. We plan for two Sundays from now."
* * *
The drive home is different. Lighter, somehow — even though the task ahead is harder than anything I've done before.
I have to maintain a friendship with a woman I now know is a serial predator.
I have to confront my husband about a photograph I wasn't supposed to find.
And I have to orchestrate a meeting where seven women face one woman and say: we know. We all know. It's over.
But I'm not alone. That's the difference. For a week I was carrying this by myself — the SD card, the hard drive, the piped cakes at 3 AM, the performance at dinner. Now there are six others. Six women who understand exactly what this feels like because they lived their own versions.
Nina gave me her number. "Call me anytime," she said at the door. "I mean it. 3 AM, 4 AM. I'm a nurse — I'm awake."
Sadie hugged me — long, tight, the kind of hug that says I know, I know, I know. She whispered: "The photos hurt the worst. I know. You read them different than other people do. You see everything."
She's right. Photographers and pastry chefs.
We're trained to see the frame. The composition.
The thing that's wrong. Sadie found her proof in the backgrounds of Vanessa's Instagram posts — recognized her own husband's kitchen counter in a selfie that was supposed to be somewhere else.
She told me that on Rachel's porch while the others were inside.
"I zoomed in on a reflection in a window behind her head," Sadie said. "And there was my living room. My bookshelf. My husband's jacket on the hook. She was IN my house."
Different details. Same violation. Same trained eye catching what shouldn't be there.
* * *
I get home at 7 PM. Liam is making pasta — his one reliable recipe. Garlic and olive oil and whatever's in the fridge. He looks up when I come in and smiles and I feel the collision in my chest. The man who makes me dinner. The man who took that photo.
"How was the supplier?" he asks.
"Good. Long drive. I'm exhausted."
"Sit. I'll bring you a plate."
I sit. He brings me pasta with cherry tomatoes and basil from the windowsill planter I keep.
He opens a beer and asks about the road and whether the supplier had interesting molds and I talk — I make things up, some vendor in Brunswick who specializes in silicone forms for architectural cakes. The lie flows easily. Too easily.
After dinner, I wash dishes. He dries. We stand side by side at the sink the way we always do — him on the left, me on the right, a rhythm we established in the first month of living together. His shoulder touches mine. The dishwater is warm. The kitchen smells like garlic and basil.
"Liam."
"Mm?"
I don't say it tonight. I'm not ready. But the word hangs in the air between us — the question I'll have to ask eventually. The SD card. The photograph. The five weeks before our wedding when he was somewhere else with someone else and didn't tell me.
"Nothing," I say. "Just — this is nice."
"Yeah." He bumps my shoulder with his. "It is."
* * *
That night I don't bake. I sit in bed with my laptop and I organize. The camera bag evidence is back in my studio — I stopped there on the way home and locked everything in the cabinet where I keep my expensive lenses. Temperature-controlled. Secure.
On my laptop I build a folder. I call it TIMELINE. Inside, I create a document with everything I know:
Vanessa Reid, 36. Born Fairfield County, CT. UConn dropout. No employment.
Confirmed aliases: Megan Torres (Portland), Tara (?), Jess (?), Brooke Ellison (?), Hannah (?), Kate (Hartford — me).
Confirmed targets: Rachel Burke, Sadie (?), Lauren Castellano-Thornton, Nina Alvarez, Cara Kline, Amy Whitfield, Danielle Patterson (me).
Current alias: Kate [LAST NAME UNKNOWN].
Current address: 44 Birchwood Lane, Apt 3B, Hartford, CT.
Current status: ACTIVE. Still in contact. Still maintaining friendship. Does not appear to suspect.
I stare at the screen. The cursor blinks.
Then I add one more line:
Confrontation planned: Sunday, [date TBD]. My apartment. All seven women present.
I close the laptop. I turn off the light. Liam is breathing steadily beside me — deep sleep, the kind that comes from a clear conscience or a well-buried one.
Two weeks. I have to be Kate's friend for two more weeks. I have to keep texting and brunching and laughing at her stories and letting her hug me. Two more weeks of smelling her perfume and remembering that she wore my dress.
I can do two weeks. I've been doing three years without knowing. Two weeks with knowing should be easier.
It won't be. But I'll do it anyway.
In the dark, my fingers flex against the comforter. The muscle memory of piping — squeeze, twist, release. My body wants to build something. Wants to create order from sugar and butter and precision.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll pipe something beautiful and destroy it and start again.
But tonight I just lie here and count the days.
Fourteen to go.