Chapter 7 - My Mother’s Secret
I wanted to hate her.
For three hours, I tried.
I sat in a plastic chair outside Nathan’s hospital room and built an entire case inside my head.
Mom cheated on Dad.
Mom switched his medication.
Mom helped cover up where he really died.
Mom attacked Emily.
Mom lied to police.
Every fact pointed in the same direction.
Then Emily sat beside me.
Her wrist was swollen beneath the splint.
“You’re thinking about cutting her out of your life.”
I stared straight ahead.
“Yes.”
Emily nodded.
“You might have to.”
That surprised me.
“But don’t decide tonight.”
I looked at her.
“After what she did to you?”
“I’m not defending her.”
“You should hate her.”
“I’m angry enough that I can barely look at that bruise on my arm without shaking.”
She paused.
“But something is wrong.”
“With Mom?”
“With the whole story.”
Emily had always been better than me at noticing what didn’t fit.
“What?”
“Why would Margaret call you?”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“If she wanted to frame me, why call you sobbing before police finished interviewing anyone?”
“To make me believe her.”
“Maybe.”
Emily leaned closer.
“But listen to what she said. She told you exactly what she wanted you to hear: your wife called me a crazy old hag and beat me with a baseball bat.”
“That was a lie.”
“Yes. But then at the station the recording revealed the truth almost immediately.”
“So?”
“Margaret knew her phone had been recording.”
I looked at her.
“How?”
“Because she started the recorder herself.”
My thoughts stopped.
“What?”
“Detective Mitchell told me the recording wasn’t accidental.”
I stood.
Mitchell was at the far end of the hallway.
I walked straight toward her.
“You said Mom accidentally recorded the argument.”
She looked at Emily.
Then back at me.
“I said she accidentally recorded twenty-six minutes.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Did she start it intentionally?”
“Yes.”
Anger surged.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether she started it to protect herself or manipulate the situation.”
“Do you know now?”
Mitchell held up Mom’s recovered phone.
“Forensics found a deleted text draft.”
“To who?”
“You.”
She showed me.
The unsent message read:
Daniel, if I say terrible things tonight, don’t believe them. Listen to everything. I’m trying to make him think I’m still on his side.
I read it twice.
“Timestamp?”
“4:52 p.m.”
Thirty-five minutes before Mom called me.
Before the bat.
Before police.
“Who is ‘him’?”
“We believe Leonard Pike.”
Suddenly, the entire confrontation looked different.
Mom arriving furious.
Nathan appearing.
The recording running.
Maybe she hadn’t gone to Emily to attack her.
Maybe she had gone there because she believed Pike was watching.
But the bat was real.
Emily’s broken wrist was real.
“What happened?” I whispered.
Nathan answered from behind me.
“Mom was trying to trap him.”
He had left his room despite nurses ordering him to stay.
He leaned against the wall.
“After Pike contacted me, Mom said we needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“That he was blackmailing us again.”
Nathan rubbed his injured hand.
“She thought if she acted unstable enough, Pike would believe she still hated Emily and wanted Dad’s letter back.”
“Why attack Emily?”
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
Emily’s expression hardened.
“Then why did she bring a bat?”
“She didn’t.”
We all looked at him.
Nathan continued.
“When I got there, the bat was already inside the kitchen.”
“That’s ours,” I said.
Claire played softball.
The bat normally stayed in the garage.
Emily went pale.
“It was on the kitchen table when Margaret arrived.”
Mitchell immediately called the officers at our house.
If somebody entered at 4:15—
The person could have moved the bat.
Removed Dad’s letter.
And prepared the scene.
Rachel.
Or Leonard.
“Mom saw the bat,” Nathan continued. “She started screaming. I think something snapped.”
Emily looked down.
“She kept saying I stole Daniel from her.”
Nathan nodded sadly.
“That part was real.”
For years, Mom had struggled with the fact that my life no longer revolved around her.
After Dad died, it became worse.
But jealousy was different from attempted assault.
Unless someone had been feeding it.
“Pike had been calling her,” Nathan said.
“How often?”
“Almost every day.”
My stomach turned.
“What was he telling her?”
“That Emily wanted to put her in a nursing home. That you planned to sell her house. That Dad’s trust was going to leave her penniless.”
“None of that is true.”
“I know.”
“But Mom believed him.”
Nathan’s eyes filled with shame.
“She’s been forgetting things.”
That caught me.
“What?”
“She made me promise not to tell you.”
Emily whispered, “Daniel.”
Nathan continued.
“She gets confused. Loses track of conversations. Last month she drove to Dad’s old office because she forgot he was dead.”
My anger cracked.
“What did the doctor say?”
“She hasn’t seen one.”
Of course she hadn’t.
Mom hated doctors.
Especially after Dad.
Pike had chosen his victim perfectly.
A grieving widow.
Early memory problems.
Old guilt.
He had convinced her to trust him once.
Now he was doing it again.
Mitchell’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“They found your mother’s coat.”
“Where?”
“A rest area off Route 33.”
My chest tightened.
“Blood?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“A note in the pocket.”
She showed me a photograph.
The handwriting belonged to Mom.
Three words.
BANK. BOX 317.
“She’s telling us where she’s going,” Emily said.
Mitchell was already moving.
The safe-deposit box.
The one Dad had hidden.
The one Rachel carried the key to.
We raced toward the elevator.
Then Nathan called after us.
“Daniel!”
I turned.
His face had gone pale.
“You need to know something about box 317.”
“What?”
“Dad told me never to open it.”
“Why?”
Nathan swallowed.
“Because the evidence inside doesn’t just destroy Leonard Pike.”
May you like
He stared directly at me.
“It destroys our family too.”
