Chapter 19 - Who Buried the Box

The answer was in the wedding footage.

Not the professional video. The florist’s delivery camera.

At 5:18 that morning, before sunrise, a figure in a cream coat walked to the ceremony platform carrying a small wooden box.

Eleanor stared at the screen.

“That’s my coat.”

Ethan turned to her. “Grandma?”

She nodded.

Richard looked stunned. “You buried it?”

“I did.”

I couldn’t decide whether to be angry or impressed.

Eleanor sat beside the fireplace.

“Claire called me three nights ago.”

The room erupted.

“You knew she was alive?” Ethan demanded.

“Not until then.”

Claire had finally decided to come home after hearing Ethan was getting married. But she was still terrified of Caleb. She believed the only way to force the family secrets into daylight was to create a discovery public enough that Richard could not quietly bury it.

“So you staged the ring?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And the box?”

“Yes.”

“The dog?”

“No.”

For the first time that night, Eleanor almost smiled.

“Ghost did that himself. I buried the box near the edge of the platform. I expected a groundskeeper to notice disturbed snow. The dog found it first.”

Ethan shook his head. “You used my wedding.”

“I saved your marriage from beginning with a lie.”

That shut him up.

Sheriff Molina’s phone buzzed.

Arizona deputies had reached Claire’s address.

The house was empty.

The back door was open.

On the kitchen floor was a broken phone.

My stomach turned.

“Caleb,” Dad said.

Then Ghost began barking at the front windows.

Headlights appeared beyond the vineyard gate.

A dark sedan stopped in the snow.

The driver’s door opened.

A woman stepped out.

Silver hair.

Red coat.

She was thinner than the woman in the Chicago photograph, and exhaustion had carved deep lines around her mouth, but Eleanor recognized her before anyone else could possibly have been sure. Her knees buckled against the edge of the sofa.

Thirty-seven years of mourning left her face in one breath.

Eleanor stood so quickly her cane fell.

“Claire.”

But the passenger door opened too.

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Caleb Voss stepped out behind her.

And he had a gun pressed against her back.