Chapter 7
Ryan requested to speak with me.
I refused.
Then he requested to speak with Detective Morales.
That conversation lasted three hours.
When the detective returned to my hospital room, she looked exhausted.
“Ryan says he didn’t know Diane planned the attack.”
I laughed.
“You have his voice on the recording.”
“He admits telling Jessica to scare you.”
“With a car.”
“Yes.”
“He knew.”
“He says he thought Jessica would bump you at walking speed.”
“Is that supposed to help him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Detective Morales sat down.
“He also claims Diane manipulated the situation.”
“Of course he does.”
“He says she convinced him you were planning to disappear with Lily.”
“I was considering staying with Claire.”
“That’s not illegal.”
“I know.”
“He believed you intended to keep him from the baby permanently.”
“So he responded by arranging vehicular assault.”
“I’m not defending him.”
I crossed my arms.
“Then what did he say about the fake birth certificate?”
“He says Diane created it.”
“Jessica said Ryan showed it to her.”
“He admits that.”
My jaw tightened.
“He knew.”
“He claims Diane told him it was part of a custody strategy.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I agree.”
“What about my insurance?”
“He says that was Diane’s idea too.”
I almost smiled.
“His mother apparently controls every thought he has.”
Detective Morales didn’t argue.
“He gave us the diary voluntarily.”
“Why?”
“He says somebody threatened him.”
“Diane?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She called after his release.”
“And?”
“She told him the only reason he was still alive was because Charles wanted him alive.”
A chill moved through me.
“What did Ryan do?”
“He went to the bus station after overhearing officers discuss Daniel’s call.”
My eyes narrowed.
“How did he overhear police?”
“He says an attorney gave him information.”
“Which attorney?”
“His.”
Of course.
“Then he stole the diary.”
“He says he intended to destroy it.”
“At least he’s finally telling one truth.”
“But he read several pages first.”
“What changed his mind?”
Detective Morales pulled a photocopy from her folder.
“Laura wrote something twenty-nine years ago.”
She handed it to me.
The handwriting was small and uneven.
I read the passage.
Charles says Diane will raise my boy, but I don’t trust her. Rebecca thinks we should run. Diane told me if I ever come back, she will make sure nobody finds either of us.
I looked up.
“Either of us.”
“Laura and Ryan.”
“Yes.”
Another page.
Diane came to see me again. She says Charles doesn’t love me and never will. I told her I don’t care. I only want my son. She laughed and said the child belongs to people who can give him power.
My stomach twisted.
People who can give him power.
Diane had treated Ryan like an investment before he could even walk.
“What frightened Ryan?”
Detective Morales handed me the third page.
This one was written later.
Rebecca says if anything happens to me, she will tell my son the truth when he is old enough.
My eyes burned.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“She knew.”
“It appears so.”
“Then why didn’t she tell Ryan?”
“We don’t know.”
I remembered my mother differently now.
She had been nervous around strangers.
She checked locks twice every night.
She hated Phoenix and begged Dad to move us to Tucson.
When she died in a car accident, police said she had fallen asleep behind the wheel.
I had been eleven.
Claire had been fourteen.
I looked at Detective Morales.
“How did my mother die?”
She understood immediately.
“I’ve already requested the old file.”
Claire came closer.
“You think Diane had something to do with Mom?”
“I don’t know.”
But the possibility was already inside both of us.
It wouldn’t leave.
Later that evening, Detective Morales received the crash report.
Rebecca Bennett had died after her brake line failed on Interstate 10.
The original investigation called it mechanical failure.
No criminal inquiry was opened.
“Brake line?” Claire whispered.
I felt like I was falling.
“She didn’t fall asleep.”
“No,” the detective said.
“The brakes failed.”
“Can you tell whether someone cut them?”
“Not from the report.”
“What about the car?”
“Destroyed years ago.”
I closed my eyes.
For fifteen years, I had believed my mother died because she was tired.
Now I imagined her pressing the brake pedal.
Nothing happening.
Her two daughters waiting at home.
My father receiving the call.
Diane knowing exactly what she had done.
If she had done it.
I refused to give her guilt without proof.
But every new secret seemed to point toward her.
The next morning, Ryan was arrested again.
This time for conspiracy and evidence tampering.
His cooperation didn’t erase what he had done.
Jessica remained in custody.
Dr. Harlan remained missing.
Diane remained missing.
Charles Whitmore issued a statement through his attorney denying any involvement.
Then Charles requested a DNA test.
Not privately.
Publicly.
His attorney told reporters that “false and malicious rumors” were harming the Whitmore family and that Charles wanted scientific proof he had no biological relationship to Ryan Carter.
Rachel showed me the news clip.
“He’s scared,” she said.
“Or innocent.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I know.”
I looked at Lily.
“I’m trying not to decide before the evidence does.”
“You’re better at that than most people.”
“What happens if Charles is Ryan’s father?”
“Legally? Not much by itself.”
“And if he helped cover up Laura’s disappearance?”
“That’s different.”
The DNA sample was collected under legal supervision.
Results would take days.
But we didn’t need days for the next shock.
Maria woke fully and gave police a statement.
She confirmed Diane paid her for my schedule.
She also admitted something worse.
“Mrs. Carter had me switch your prenatal vitamins.”
I stared at Detective Morales.
“What?”
Maria cried on the video interview.
“She gave me a bottle and told me to replace yours.”
My stomach turned.
“Replace them with what?”
“The pills looked the same.”
“What were they?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire stood so fast her chair fell.
“You took pills from Diane and put them in my pregnant sister’s bottle?”
Maria sobbed.
“She said they were supplements.”
“For what?”
“She said they would keep the baby small so delivery would be easier.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I became very calm.
“How long?”
“About six weeks.”
My doctor had repeatedly said Lily was measuring small.
He blamed stress.
Was it because of the pills?
Blood tests were ordered immediately.
The pills were retrieved from my house under police escort.
Preliminary testing identified a prescription medication not recommended during pregnancy because it could affect fetal growth and blood pressure.
I felt rage so pure it almost cleared my mind.
Diane had been interfering with my pregnancy long before Jessica’s car.
This had never started with the affair.
The affair was just another tool.
That afternoon, police searched Diane’s home.
Behind a false panel in her office, they found photographs.
Laura.
My mother Rebecca.
Ryan as a child.
Charles Whitmore.
And me.
One photograph had been taken at my wedding.
Diane stood behind me, smiling.
On the back, in her handwriting, were the words:
Rebecca’s daughter. Watch carefully.
Another picture showed my positive pregnancy test sitting on the bathroom counter.
I had never shown it to Diane.
On the back:
If it is a boy, Charles will be pleased.
The next photo was from my twenty-week ultrasound.
Our baby was clearly a girl.
Diane had written:
Not ideal, but useful.
I began to shake.
My daughter had never been a granddaughter to Diane.
She had been an asset.
A continuation of blood.
A bargaining chip.
“Why would Charles care whether it was a boy?” Claire asked.
Rachel looked at the photograph.
“Legacy.”
I thought about the Whitmore empire.
Charles had two daughters.
No sons.
His daughters had both taken their husbands’ names.
Old-fashioned people like Charles cared about ridiculous things like surnames and male heirs.
But Ryan was already male.
Why would Lily’s sex matter?
Unless Charles didn’t know Ryan existed until recently.
Or unless something else was being planned.
Detective Morales entered with another item from Diane’s house.
A sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Emily.
Inside was a handwritten note.
If you are reading this, then Ryan failed.
I stared at the first line.
Claire whispered, “That’s Diane’s handwriting.”
I kept reading.
You think you married into this family by accident.
You did not.
My blood turned cold.
Ryan did not meet you by chance.
Charles chose you before Ryan ever walked into that restaurant.
I stopped.
The room became silent.
I remembered the night I met Ryan.
A crowded restaurant.
A spilled drink.
A charming stranger.
The story we had told at our wedding.
The story we had repeated for seven years.
Apparently it had all been a lie.
I forced myself to continue.
Your mother took something that belonged to us.
You were supposed to return it.
But then you became pregnant.
And everything changed.
At the bottom was one final sentence.
Ask Claire what your mother left inside the blue box.
I slowly looked at my sister.
Claire had gone completely pale.
“What blue box?”
She backed away.
“Emily.”
“What blue box?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I promised Mom I would never tell you unless someone came looking for it.”
My heart pounded.
“Someone came looking.”
Claire nodded.
Then whispered, “It’s in my apartment.”
“What is?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had it all these years and never opened it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom made me swear.”
I stared at her.
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
Three weeks before our mother died.
May you like
Rebecca Bennett had given my teenage sister a locked blue box.
And fifteen years later, Diane Carter was still searching for it.
