Chapter 8 - Jenna’s Mother
Jenna stopped breathing for a second.
“Why was my mother in Claire’s car?”
Nobody answered.
They drove to Ruth’s apartment in Cambridge.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, the kitchen light was on and a mug of tea sat cold beside the sink.
Jenna called, “Mom?”
Silence.
Ethan checked the bedroom. Empty.
Margaret found a suitcase half packed on the bed.
“She was going somewhere,” she said.
On the dresser sat an old photograph of Jenna and Ethan at a Red Sox game, long before Claire entered either of their lives.
Jenna looked away.
In the living room, Noah found a yellow legal pad.
One page had been torn out, but the next page held pressure marks.
Ethan shaded it lightly with the side of a pencil.
Words appeared.
DANIEL - BRAKE LINE - V.L.
Jenna whispered, “Oh my God.”
Below it was another line.
CLAIRE KNEW AFTER.
Margaret sat down hard.
“After,” she repeated. “Not before.”
Ethan understood. “So Claire may not have caused Daniel’s crash.”
“But she helped hide something afterward,” Noah said.
Jenna’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered on speaker.
Her mother’s voice came through, breathless and low.
“Jenna, don’t ask questions. Take Lily and leave Boston tonight.”
“Mom, where are you?”
“I’m safe for now.”
“Were you with Claire?”
A pause.
Then Ruth said, “Claire is dangerous when she’s cornered, but she isn’t the one you should be afraid of.”
“Who?”
Ruth inhaled sharply.
A man’s voice sounded far away.
Ruth whispered, “Victor found the ledger.”
The line crackled.
“Mom?”
“If Ethan wants the truth about Daniel, tell him to look where Daniel proposed.”
“Where?”
But the call ended.
Ethan stared at the phone.
He knew exactly where Daniel had proposed.
The old boathouse on Lake Winnipesaukee.
A property the family had not visited since Daniel died.
Then Jenna noticed something else on the legal pad.
A final pressed line, faint but readable:
LILY WAS NEVER THE TARGET.
May you like
Underneath, one name had been written twice.
ETHAN.
