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“Fine. We wait. She has to come back eventually. I’ll stay at the hotel like planned. You stay here. When she shows up, do it. Yes, I’m sure.”
He hung up and turned to Vincent.
“I’m leaving. Going to the Marriott to establish my alibi. You stay here. Hide. Wait for her. When she comes back, finish it.”
“What if she doesn’t come back?”
“She will. She’s got nowhere else to go. This is her home. She’ll come back.”
Marcus grabbed his keys and wallet from the table, headed for the door, then paused with his hand on the handle. He looked back at Vincent.
“Make it quick. Don’t let her suffer.”
Vincent nodded. “Never do.”
Marcus left. I watched through the crack as my husband, the man I had loved, married, and built a life with, walked out of our house, leaving a contract attacker behind to wait for me.
Vincent settled onto our couch, weapon on the coffee table, waiting. I stayed frozen in the attic, not moving, barely breathing, praying the FBI would arrive before Vincent found me.
At 1:47 a.m., my phone, still on silent, lit up with a text from Rachel.
Stay hidden. Stay silent. 15 minutes.
I almost cried with relief. Fifteen minutes. I just had to stay hidden for fifteen more minutes.
At 2:04 a.m., I heard them. Sirens. Multiple vehicles screeching to a stop outside my house. Car doors slamming. Heavy footsteps running up the walkway.
Through the crack in the floorboards, I watched Vincent jump to his feet and grab his weapon. Then a voice boomed from outside, amplified through a megaphone.
“FBI. We have the house surrounded. Vincent Russo, we know you’re inside. Put down your weapon and come out with your hands up.”
Vincent looked toward the front door, then toward the back, calculating his options.
“This is the FBI. We have arrest warrants for Vincent Russo and Marcus Chen. You have ten seconds to comply before we breach the door.”
Vincent dropped his weapon and raised his hands.
“Coming out. Don’t shoot. I’m coming out.”
He walked slowly toward the front door, opened it, and stepped out onto the porch with his hands raised high. I could not see what happened next. My view through the floorboards did not extend to the front porch, but I heard shouted commands.
“On the ground now. Face down. Hands behind your head.”
Then footsteps rushed into my house. Multiple people, tactical gear, flashlights sweeping through every room.
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
“Clear.”
And then I heard her voice, panicked and desperate.
“Claire! Claire, where are you? It’s me, Rachel. It’s safe now. Please answer me.”
I could not make my voice work. I could not move. I was frozen with shock and fear and relief.
“Claire!” Rachel’s voice grew more desperate. “Please, where are you?”
Finally, I managed to whisper, “Attic.”
“Where? Louder.”
“Attic. I’m in the attic.”
Footsteps pounded down the hallway. The attic door rattled.
“Claire, unlock it. It’s me. You’re safe now. It’s over.”
With trembling hands, I reached up and unlocked the latch. The door pulled down. Rachel’s face appeared in the opening. She climbed up into the attic and pulled me into her arms.
I collapsed against her and sobbed, great wrenching sobs that came from somewhere deep inside.
“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. He can’t hurt you.”
We sat in the attic together, just like when we were kids and Rachel would protect me from nightmares, while FBI agents secured my house and arrested the man who had been sent to harm me.
Over the next seventy-two hours, while I stayed in Rachel’s hotel room under FBI protection, the full truth came out. Vincent Russo, facing multiple serious charges and the harshest possible consequences, cooperated fully with investigators in exchange for a plea deal.
He confessed that Marcus had contacted him three weeks earlier through an encrypted messaging app used by criminals, offering him $200,000 to attack Marcus’s wife and make it look like a home invasion.
“He said she was heavily insured,” Vincent told investigators. “That he needed her gone but couldn’t be connected to it. Wanted it to look random. Said he’d be at a hotel establishing an alibi during the window.”
Vincent provided text messages, emails, and financial records showing Marcus had already paid him $100,000 up front, with another $100,000 due upon completion.
But it got worse. So much worse.
The FBI searched our house on Alberta Street. They brought in forensic teams and searched every room, every closet, every drawer in Marcus’s home office, the room I rarely entered because it was his space.
They found a locked drawer in his desk. Inside were trophies, items taken from victims: a silver bracelet, a scarf, a driver’s license, an earring, a watch, a necklace, a hair clip, and a keychain. Eight items, one from each of the Westside Strangler’s victims.
They also found a journal, handwritten, leather-bound, hidden in a false bottom of the drawer.
Rachel showed it to me two days later, after I had been sedated, after I had time to process that my husband had tried to have me erased.