Chapter 8 - Emily
Emily Cross was sixteen.
Her father Daniel had divorced her mother five years earlier.
Rachel had dated Daniel briefly before she met me.
Nobody told me.
Melissa had photographs.
Rachel and Daniel together.
Vacations.
Parties.
A relationship lasting almost two years.
Daniel claimed it ended before Rachel met me.
Then Emily agreed to speak with Detective Ortiz.
She remembered Rachel.
“She hated when I interrupted them.”
Emily described punishments.
Standing against walls.
Meals withheld.
Being locked outside.
Her father dismissed it as strict discipline.
Then one night Rachel shoved Emily into a kitchen counter.
Emily needed stitches.
Daniel told the emergency room she slipped.
No report was made.
Emily’s mother ended Daniel’s custody visits soon afterward.
I felt sick.
Rachel had a pattern.
Daniel knew.
And years later he became the attorney helping her describe Sophie as unstable.
Claire asked Emily why she was willing to speak now.
Emily answered.
“Because I saw Rachel’s livestream.”
“She used the same voice.”
“What voice?”
“The crying one.”
Emily looked at me.
“The voice she uses when adults are watching.”
Daniel Cross withdrew as Rachel’s attorney the next morning.
Too late.
Lena obtained his communications with Rachel under warrant.
One message was devastating.
RACHEL: SHE KEEPS TELLING SCHOOL PEOPLE THINGS.
DANIEL: THEN BUILD THE BEHAVIORAL HISTORY FASTER.
RACHEL: WHAT IF MARK FINDS OUT?
DANIEL: BY THEN HE’LL LOOK LIKE THE PROBLEM.
Mark.
Me.
They had not merely prepared for divorce.
May you like
They had prepared to make anything Sophie said unbelievable.
