Chapter 16 - Claire’s Evidence
Claire’s letter contained copies of emails Eleanor believed she had deleted.
In one, Eleanor instructed Marcus to route old liabilities into “W.S.-controlled vehicles.”
In another, she wrote: If questions ever reach William, he must appear to have been involved from the beginning. It is the only way to preserve the rest of us.
William read the sentence twice.
His mother had built an escape route that led directly through him.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Reed arrived at the mansion before midnight.
He read every page.
“This changes things,” he said.
“Enough to clear me?”
“Enough to investigate the documents against you as possible fabrications.”
William nodded. “What about my mother?”
“We’ll need her phones, accounts, and communications.”
Emma came in from the hall.
“She’s gone.”
William stood. “What?”
“Her room is empty. Her driver is gone too.”
Daniel checked the security system.
“The east gate opened twelve minutes ago.”
William called Eleanor.
She answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?”
“Fixing what your wife should never have started.”
“What does that mean?”
“Claire left too much behind.”
William’s blood turned cold.
“The music box.”
Eleanor was silent.
He ran upstairs.
Charlotte’s music box was gone.
“Where would she take it?” Reed asked.
William thought of the family’s private memorial garden, where Claire’s ashes had been placed beneath a stone marker.
Claire used to sit there with Charlotte and wind the music box.
“She’s going to the cemetery garden.”
Rain still fell when they reached it.
Eleanor stood beneath the stone pavilion holding the music box over a metal trash can.
Flames burned inside.
William ran toward her.
“Don’t!”
Eleanor lifted the box.
“You have no idea what Claire hid in this.”
William stopped ten feet away.
“Then show me.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with something that looked almost like grief.
“She hid the proof that your father did not kill Rachel Crane.”
William stared.
“Who did?”
May you like
Eleanor looked at him.
“I did.”
