I gripped the edge of the table.
“Who created it?”
“Adrian Vale.”
“And what did Richard say?”
“He said it was necessary to protect his daughter.”
I swallowed.
“Did he call Sophie his daughter in the email?”
“No.”
Vesna’s next words came out almost inaudibly.
“He called her the asset.”
I couldn’t answer.
An infant.
A human being who had been alive for only a few weeks.
And somewhere in the middle of a financial arrangement, someone had described her as an asset.
I asked Vesna to share the information with her attorney and the investigators, not with me. She agreed.
Then she said something that chilled me more than anything else.
“Claire, Richard came to the place where I’m staying last night.”
My body went rigid.
“How?”
“I don’t know. He was outside the building. He didn’t come in. He just called me from the street and said he wanted to talk.”
