Chapter 4
Nobody moved.
The message glowed on Lauren’s screen like a threat placed in the middle of the room.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
“David is alive.”
Lauren locked her phone.
“Mark—”
“You told me he died.”
“I can explain.”
Jason gave a humorless laugh.
“There’s that phrase again.”
Lauren glared at him.
I held out my hand.
“Phone.”
“No.”
“Then leave it and get out.”
“You can’t—”
“Choose.”
Her eyes filled with rage.
Not fear.
Rage.
Because for the first time, she was losing control of the information.
She handed me the phone.
“Password.”
She hesitated.
“Lauren.”
“0719.”
The phone opened.
Sophie was still sitting in the living room.
I didn’t want her seeing whatever was coming next.
“Mom, please take Sophie upstairs.”
Sophie stood.
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“You keep sending me away.”
Her voice cracked.
“And every time I come back, something worse happened while I was gone.”
That hit me harder than I expected.
I crouched in front of her.
“You’re right. But some of this may be dangerous.”
“I’m already in it.”
She looked at Lauren.
“She made me part of it.”
Lauren rolled her eyes.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
I stood so fast Lauren stepped backward.
“Say one more cruel thing to her.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning that you are done speaking to my daughter tonight.”
My mother took Sophie’s hand.
“Come sit with me in the kitchen. Door open. You’ll hear us.”
Sophie finally nodded.
When they left, I opened Lauren’s messages.
The thread with David went back seven months.
Most of it was short.
Where is it?
Friday.
Not enough.
You promised.
Sell something else.
Then, three months earlier:
He doesn’t know.
Good.
Keep it that way.
My mouth went dry.
I scrolled.
Photographs appeared.
Rachel’s jewelry.
The pearl bracelet.
The sapphires.
The ring.
Photographed on our kitchen counter.
Then a message from David.
Take them to Caldwell.
They don’t ask questions if the paperwork looks clean.
Jason leaned over my shoulder.
“That’s where she got the idea.”
I kept scrolling.
There were bank transfer screenshots.
Four thousand.
Seven thousand.
Nine thousand.
Payments from Lauren to an account under the name David Knox.
I looked at her.
“Why were you paying him?”
She folded her arms.
“He was blackmailing me.”
“For what?”
Silence.
“Lauren.”
“He had things.”
“What things?”
“Personal things.”
Jason frowned.
“What kind?”
She looked at me.
“Pictures.”
I stared.
“Pictures of what?”
“Me.”
Understanding came slowly.
Private photographs.
Something from a past relationship.
For half a second, compassion tried to surface.
Blackmail was still blackmail.
No one deserved that.
Then I looked toward the kitchen where Sophie sat with my mother.
“You stole from a child because someone threatened to release photographs?”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It sounds exactly that simple.”
“You don’t understand what he had.”
“Then you should have told me.”
“And what would you have done?”
“Called the police.”
“He would have posted everything before they did anything.”
“So instead you sold Rachel’s things?”
“I panicked!”
“You panicked for seven months?”
She flinched.
Jason said quietly, “There’s more.”
Lauren turned.
“You need to leave.”
“What more?” I asked.
Jason looked at the phone.
“Search ‘Seattle.’”
I did.
A message appeared from five months earlier.
David: Seattle worked once. It can work again.
Lauren: He isn’t Rachel.
My skin prickled.
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Lauren said nothing.
I searched Rachel’s name.
Three results appeared.
The first was from Lauren.
Rachel never knew who you were.
The second from David.
She knew enough.
The third made my blood run cold.
You promised me Rachel was an accident.
I stopped breathing.
Jason whispered, “That’s why I came tonight.”
I looked at Lauren.
She was crying now.
Real tears.
Or at least they looked real.
“What accident?”
“Mark, please.”
“What accident?”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“Rachel died in a car crash.”
My voice sounded far away.
A rainy road.
A guardrail.
A police officer at my door.
Sophie asleep upstairs.
My life ending in one sentence.
Your wife was involved in a single-vehicle accident.
“She lost control,” I said.
Lauren’s face crumpled.
“I didn’t know you then.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
“What did David have to do with Rachel’s crash?”
“I don’t know.”
Jason stepped closer.
“You told me David caused it.”
Lauren spun toward him.
“I said he claimed he caused it!”
Silence.
My hands went numb.
“What?”
She covered her face.
“He said it when he came back.”
“Back from the dead?”
“He wasn’t dead.”
“You lied.”
“Yes!”
The word exploded out of her.
She dropped her hands.
“Yes. I lied about David being dead. I lied because I wanted that part of my life gone.”
“Start at the beginning.”
She shook her head.
“Now.”
Lauren sat.
For the first time that night, she looked small.
“David and I dated in Portland.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Rachel died four years ago.
I already hated the math.
“David was controlling,” she continued. “He checked my phone. Followed me. Threatened people. When I left him, he became obsessed.”
“What does that have to do with Rachel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You mentioned her in the messages.”
Lauren looked at the floor.
“Two years after I left him, he contacted me. He sent me a news article.”
My stomach twisted.
“About Rachel’s death?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“He said, ‘I can make problems disappear.’”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to believe he randomly sent you an article about my wife?”
“No.”
Her voice became almost inaudible.
“I had seen you before.”
My chest tightened.
“Where?”
“At a conference.”
I remembered.
A regional nonprofit fundraiser in Seattle.
Rachel had attended with me.
Three months before she died.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
“Did we meet?”
“No.”
“Did you meet Rachel?”
“No.”
Lauren looked up.
“But David was there.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Why?”
“He followed me.”
Jason swore under his breath.
I stepped closer.
“Did David know who Rachel was?”
“Not then.”
“Stop saying things you can’t know.”
Lauren started crying harder.
“I posted a picture from the event. You and Rachel were in the background.”
I remembered people taking photographs everywhere.
“And?”
“David messaged me asking who you were.”
“Why?”
“He thought I was interested in you.”
I stared.
“Were you?”
She didn’t answer quickly enough.
My stomach turned.
“You were.”
“I saw you speaking. That was all.”
“I was married.”
“I know.”
“So David became jealous of a married man you had never even spoken to?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane.”
“He was insane!”
Her voice cracked.
“He found out your name. He found Rachel. He sent me links. Pictures. Your address.”
I felt suddenly exposed in my own home.
“What did you do?”
“I told him to stop.”
“And Rachel died three months later.”
Lauren’s shoulders shook.
“I didn’t connect it.”
“Until when?”
“Until he came back seven months ago.”
“Why did you tell me he was dead?”
“Because I wanted you to stop asking about my past.”
I laughed without humor.
“My wife dies in a car crash. Years later, I marry a woman whose violent ex had been stalking my family before the crash.”
“I didn’t know!”
“And then he returns and says what?”
“That he did me a favor.”
The room vanished around me.
All I could hear was blood pounding in my ears.
“What favor?”
Lauren looked directly at me.
“He said he made you available.”
I stumbled backward.
Jason caught my arm.
I ripped away.
“No.”
Lauren sobbed.
“I told him he was lying.”
“You should have gone to the police.”
“I was scared.”
“You should have told me.”
“I was scared you’d think I had something to do with it.”
I stared at her.
“Did you?”
“No!”
She stood.
“Mark, I swear to you. I never asked him to hurt Rachel. I never wanted Rachel hurt.”
“But you knew seven months ago that he claimed responsibility.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I didn’t believe him.”
“Then why pay him?”
Silence.
That was the question.
The real one.
If David was only lying, why had she paid him forty-seven thousand dollars?
Lauren looked toward the floor.
“He had proof.”
Jason went still.
I could barely speak.
“What proof?”
“A video.”
My heart stopped.
“What video?”
“He sent me a clip from a dash camera.”
She swallowed.
“It showed Rachel’s car.”
My knees almost gave out.
“And?”
“Another car was behind her.”
“What car?”
“David’s.”
The kitchen chair scraped.
Sophie was standing in the doorway.
Her face had no color.
“You knew someone killed my mom?”
Lauren looked at her.
“Sophie—”
“You knew.”
“No, I didn’t know for sure.”
“For seven months.”
“I was trying to protect everyone.”
Sophie’s entire body shook.
“You wore her necklace.”
Lauren looked stunned.
Sophie continued.
“You knew a man might have killed her, and then you stole her necklace and wore a fake one at Grandma’s birthday.”
Tears poured down Sophie’s face.
“You’re sick.”
Lauren took a step toward her.
Sophie screamed.
“Don’t touch me!”
I moved between them.
My mother pulled Sophie back.
Jason looked at me.
“You need the video.”
I nodded.
“Where is it?”
Lauren whispered, “David has the full copy.”
“When are you supposed to meet him?”
Her eyes went to the clock.
“Midnight.”
It was eight forty-seven.
I picked up my phone.
Lauren grabbed my arm.
“What are you doing?”
May you like
“What you should have done seven months ago.”
I dialed 911.
