Chapter 7 - My Best Friend Was Standing Beside the Monster
Rachel had been my best friend since college.
She had comforted me after every fight.
She had driven me to the hospital twice.
She had told me Daniel was dangerous.
She had even encouraged me to leave him.
How could she be involved?
Mara didn't believe it at first.
Neither did I.
But then the financial records arrived.
Rachel had received payments from one of Marcus's shell companies.
Not once.
Twenty-seven times.
Over five years.
I felt physically ill.
“No.”
Mara placed the records in front of me.
“I know.”
“Maybe there's an explanation.”
“There may be.”
We called Rachel.
She agreed to meet.
She arrived at the station crying.
“I didn't hurt your mother.”
I stared at her.
“Did you work with Daniel?”
“Yes.”
My heart broke.
“How long?”
“Since before your wedding.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Why?”
She looked down.
“Because Marcus threatened me.”
“With what?”
“My brother.”
She explained that Marcus had been blackmailing her family.
Rachel was forced to monitor me.
She told Daniel where I went.
Who I spoke to.
What I searched.
But she claimed she never knew about the violence.
“You knew.”
She cried.
“I suspected.”
“You watched me suffer.”
“I was scared.”
I stood.
“You were my best friend.”
“I know.”
“You watched me.”
“I know.”
“Why didn't you help?”
She covered her face.
“Because every time I tried, Marcus threatened my brother.”
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me did.
But another part understood fear.
Not enough to forgive.
Enough to understand.
Then Rachel handed Mara a phone.
“This is everything.”
Messages.
Payments.
Instructions.
Photographs.
And one final conversation with Marcus.
It proved Marcus had ordered Daniel to isolate me.
But there was something else.
A message sent the day my mother died.
She knows. Handle it tonight.
Rachel had never seen who the message was about.
Mara traced the sender.
The number belonged to someone unexpected.
Eleanor Grant.
I stared.
“The attorney?”
“Yes.”
My stomach dropped.
Eleanor had helped my mother.
She had protected me.
Or so I thought.
We found her at her office.
She didn't run.
She simply sat down.
“I wondered when you'd come.”
I stared at her.
“Did you kill my mother?”
“No.”
“Then why did Marcus have your number?”
“Because I was working undercover.”
Mara narrowed her eyes.
“Undercover for whom?”
“The federal investigators.”
Silence.
Eleanor explained that she had been helping build a case against Marcus.
But the investigation had collapsed after my mother's death.
She stayed silent because revealing herself would have endangered the case.
She had continued watching Daniel.
She was the one who anonymously tipped the nurse to give me Detective Ruiz's card.
She was the one who contacted the bank.
She had been protecting me.
I sat down.
Everything felt upside down.
Mara asked:
“Then who killed Claire's mother?”
Eleanor looked at me.
“I don't know.”
“But you know who ordered it.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Eleanor hesitated.
“Your father.”
I stared.
Again.
My dead father.
Except he wasn't dead.
Eleanor revealed the truth.
My father had orchestrated my mother's death to prevent her from exposing him.
Then he disappeared.
Marcus blamed the Carter family.
Daniel was recruited years later.
Everything had been built on my father's crimes.
Mara immediately reopened the case.
And then came the impossible news.
My father had been found.
Alive.
Living under a false name.
In another state.
He agreed to testify.
May you like
But he wanted one thing.
To speak to me first.
