Chapter 6
I dropped the phone.
It hit the floor with a crack.
“You were going to leave me,” I said.
Rachel’s face crumbled.
“Michael, let me explain—”
“Eight months ago,” I said. “You consulted a divorce lawyer. You inventoried everything. You were planning your exit.”
“I was scared!” she cried. “I’d just found out my husband’s entire life was a lie! That his parents were criminals! I didn’t know what would happen to us! I was protecting myself!”
“By taking half of everything?” I said. “By positioning yourself to walk away with a house you didn’t pay for, with money that wasn’t even ours?”
“I didn’t know about the Carter money then!” she shouted. “That part’s true! I only found out about that when Richard showed up last week!”
I stared at her.
“Last week,” I repeated. “You’ve known about him for a week. And you said nothing.”
“I was going to tell you!”
“When? After you’d figured out how to get your hands on the forty-two million?”
Richard was watching all of this with a carefully neutral expression.
But I saw the slight tightening of his jaw.
“Michael,” he said. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation privately.”
“No,” I said. “Everyone stays. Everything comes out. Right now.”
I turned to my mother.
She was huddled in the corner of the couch.
Wrinkled.
Small.
Just an old woman who’d made a terrible choice thirty-four years ago.
And then spent every day after paying for it.
“Mom,” I said. “The video Rachel recorded. What was on it?”
She looked up.
Confused.
“The video,” I repeated. “Rachel said she recorded you in the kitchen. You begged her not to play it. What did you say?”
My mother looked at Rachel.
Something passed between them.
Something old.
Something ugly.
“Tell him,” Mom said.
Rachel’s eyes widened.
“No,” she said.
“Tell him,” my mother repeated, stronger now. “Or I will.”
Rachel grabbed my arm.
“Michael, don’t listen to her. She’s desperate. She’ll say anything to turn you against me.”
I shook her off.
“What’s on the video, Rachel?”
She was breathing hard now.
Panicked.
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just her yelling. Just her admitting she forged the papers. That’s all.”
I picked up her cracked phone.
The screen still worked.
I found the video.
Pressed play.
My mother’s voice filled the room.
“If you sign those papers, Rachel, I’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Thomas left me a life insurance policy. Two hundred thousand. It’s yours. All you have to do is sign the house over to me. Then when Richard takes everything, he only gets the house. The rest of the money stays in the family.”
Then Rachel’s voice.
“I’m not signing anything, Evelyn. I’m not going to prison for fraud because of something you did thirty years ago.”
“You’ll go down too,” Mom’s voice said. “You’ve known for a year. You’ve benefited from it. That makes you an accessory.”
Then the sound of a slap.
Rachel’s voice.
“Don’t you ever touch me again.”
Then my mother, crying.
“Michael will be home soon. He’ll see your face. He’ll know.”
“Let him,” Rachel said coldly. “I’ll tell him everything. Including the part where you offered me two hundred thousand to help you cover it up. He’ll choose me. He always does.”
The video ended.
May you like
I looked at Rachel.
She was backing toward the door.
