Chapter 7
Evelyn’s Daughter At the police station, they gave me coffee I did not drink.
My hands would not stop shaking.
Evelyn sat across from me, both hands wrapped around her paper cup. “My daughter’s name was Claire,” she said.
Mark had told me about Claire once. His first wife. Dead before I met him. A car accident, he said. A tragedy he did not like to discuss.
“She had a lake house too,” Evelyn continued.
My skin prickled. “Left to her by her father.
Mark wanted her to sell it.” Detective Voss placed a folder on the table. Photos. Documents. Printed messages. Insurance forms. Medical notes.
“Claire became ‘unstable’ too,” the detective said. I stared at her. “According to Mark.” Evelyn’s voice broke. “He told everyone she was paranoid. That she thought he was watching her. That she believed gifts were bugged.”
My stomach turned. “She died before she could prove it.”
The room seemed to shrink. “How?” “Her car went off a bridge,” Voss said. “The case was closed as suicide.” Evelyn’s eyes filled. “But I never believed it.” For five years, she had followed pieces. A jeweler who remembered modifying a clasp.
A private investigator who disappeared from the case. A storage unit paid for in Mark’s old business name.
Then, two months ago, she found my name.
Sophie Bennett.
May you like
New wife. New property. Same pattern. “She found you on the bus?” I asked. Evelyn nodded. “I didn’t know how else to warn you without tipping him off.”
My tears came then. Silent. Hot. Ashamed. Not because I had been fooled. Because Claire had been too. And Mark had counted on that.
