Chapter 17 - Rebecca’s Last Night
Richard sat down.
Nobody had to force the answer from him now.
“Rebecca died in a car crash,” he said.
Ethan stared at him.
“You told me she was sick.”
“She was sick afterward. She survived the crash for six weeks.”
“You let me believe cancer killed her for twelve years.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“Stop using that word.”
Ethan’s shout shook the room.
“Every lie in this house comes wrapped in the word protect.”
Richard looked at the floor.
Rebecca had learned Claire was alive. She began secretly corresponding with her biological mother. In 2004, she planned to meet Claire in Chicago.
On the way to the airport, her brake line failed.
Sheriff Molina asked, “Was it investigated?”
Richard nodded. “The mechanic said it looked cut.”
“And you never told your son?”
“I believed Caleb did it. I had no proof.”
Dad’s face hardened. “You knew Caleb was still watching the family.”
“Yes.”
“And you still kept him close enough to work on the property?”
Richard looked sick. “Because he had evidence against me. I paid him for years to stay quiet.”
Eleanor struck the floor with her cane. “You fed the monster.”
Richard didn’t defend himself.
Sheriff Molina’s phone rang.
She walked into the hall, listened, then returned.
“Chicago police opened locker 214.”
We all stood.
“What was inside?” I asked.
“Original financial ledgers. Two audio tapes. A passport under the name Claire Miller.”
Ethan gripped the back of a chair.
“And?”
Molina looked at him.
“A sealed letter dated last year.”
Last year.
Claire had been alive at least until then.
Molina continued, “There was also a recent photograph.”
She turned her phone toward us.
The woman in the image was in her seventies, silver-haired, thin, standing beside a red mailbox somewhere warm.
On the back of the photo were three words.
IF ETHAN MARRIES.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
May you like
I answered.
An elderly woman said, “Mara, don’t marry Ethan until you know what his father did last winter.”
