Chapter 6 - The Secret Bethany Was Too Afraid to Tell
Bethany had been fifteen when Margarite died.
Old enough to understand fear.
Too young to understand manipulation.
On the night after their mother’s funeral, Sylvia sat beside Bethany in the guest bedroom and told her something that would shape the next eleven years.
“The police may ask questions about your mother.”
Bethany had stared.
“Why?”
“Because of the argument.”
“What argument?”
“The one you had with her.”
Bethany remembered instantly.
Three nights before Margarite died, mother and daughter had fought.
Bethany wanted to attend an overnight party.
Margarite refused.
Bethany screamed that she hated her.
She shouted that she wished Margarite would disappear and leave her alone.
Normal teenage cruelty.
The kind forgotten in most families by morning.
Except Margarite died three days later.
Sylvia took that guilt and sharpened it.
“You were the last person to upset her,” Sylvia told the fifteen-year-old girl.
Bethany began sobbing.
“I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“Did she crash because she was upset?”
Sylvia did not say yes.
She did something worse.
She said, “We may never know.”
For years Bethany believed her argument had somehow contributed to the accident.
Every time she resisted Sylvia, the implication returned.
Your mother died stressed.
Your mother worried about you.
Your mother needed peace.
Do not become another problem.
Josie listened from across the apartment table.
“You thought you killed Mom?”
Bethany wiped her face.
“Not killed.”
“What else do you call it?”
“I thought maybe she was crying. Maybe she wasn’t paying attention.”
“The other driver crossed the median.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
“I was fifteen.”
Josie leaned back.
The anger she had carried toward Bethany shifted.
It did not disappear.
But it changed shape.
“What does that have to do with court?”
Bethany looked terrified.
“There’s a recording.”
“What recording?”
“My argument with Mom.”
Josie stared.
“Why would anyone record that?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“I was going to send it to my friend because I wanted to prove how unreasonable Mom was.”
Bethany covered her face.
“I recorded her without telling her.”
“What’s on it?”
“Me screaming. Mom crying.”
“That’s embarrassing. It isn’t a crime.”
“There’s more.”
Bethany reached for her phone.
She had copied the old file years ago.
Josie listened.
Fifteen-year-old Bethany screamed.
Margarite tried to remain calm.
Then Bethany said words adult Bethany had apparently remembered every day since.
“I wish you would just die and let Aunt Sylvia take care of us!”
The recording ended.
Josie closed her eyes.
Bethany whispered, “Sylvia has a copy.”
“So?”
“She says if I testify against her, she’ll release it.”
Josie stared at her.
“That’s what controls you?”
“You didn’t hear it the way I do.”
“I heard a fifteen-year-old being horrible.”
“I wished Mom dead.”
“You were angry.”
“And she died three days later.”
“That doesn’t turn you into a murderer.”
“You don’t know what people online will do with it.”
That stopped Josie.
Yes.
She knew exactly what people online could do.
Take twenty seconds.
Remove context.
Add a caption.
Destroy a person.
Bethany looked at Josie’s scar.
“You understand.”
Josie did.
For eleven years, Bethany’s prison had been invisible.
Sylvia merely needed to threaten opening the door.
Josie moved around the table and sat beside her sister.
“I was nine when I told Mom I wanted a different mother.”
Bethany looked at her.
“What?”
“She wouldn’t let me keep a stray cat.”
“You never told me that.”
“I forgot until now.”
Bethany almost smiled.
Josie continued.
“Mom made grilled cheese twenty minutes later.”
Tears slipped down Bethany’s face.
“I never got grilled cheese after my fight.”
“No.”
“She died.”
“Yes.”
“What if those were the last words she remembered from me?”
Josie swallowed.
“Then she remembered them as your mother.”
Bethany looked confused.
Josie touched her hand.
“Which means she knew you didn’t mean them.”
Bethany began crying harder.
This time Josie held her.
It was the first time the sisters embraced since Margarite’s funeral.
Neither felt healed.
Healing did not happen because someone cried in the right arms.
But something frozen between them moved.
The next morning, Bethany called Daniel.
“I’ll testify.”
Daniel asked whether she understood the recording might become public.
“Yes.”
“You can refuse to discuss irrelevant personal material.”
“Sylvia will release it anyway.”
“Possibly.”
Bethany looked at Josie.
“Then I release it first.”
Josie frowned.
“What?”
Bethany opened her social media account.
For years her photographs had been carefully polished.
Vacations.
Restaurants.
Clothing.
Birthdays.
A life with no visible cracks.
She uploaded the audio herself.
Above it she wrote:
I was fifteen years old when I said something cruel to my mother three days before she died in an accident. For eleven years, I let someone use my shame over this recording to control me.
I said the words.
I regret them.
I did not cause my mother’s death.
And I will not let my guilt be used to help someone steal from my sister anymore.
Bethany pressed Post.
Her hands shook.
Josie sat beside her.
Within one hour, thousands of comments appeared.
Some were cruel.
Many were not.
Parents wrote about terrible things their teenagers had shouted.
Adults wrote about final conversations they wished they could change.
One woman wrote:
My son told me he hated me last Tuesday because I took his car keys. He hugged me this morning before school. Mothers know the difference between anger and truth.
Bethany read it three times.
Then put down the phone and cried quietly.
Sylvia called eleven minutes later.
Bethany answered on speaker.
“What have you done?”
Bethany looked toward Josie.
“Told the truth.”
“You stupid girl.”
Bethany flinched.
Josie reached for the phone.
Bethany stopped her.
“No.”
For the first time, Bethany answered Sylvia herself.
“You don’t get to call me stupid anymore.”
“You have no idea what you’ve exposed.”
“I exposed myself.”
“You embarrassed this family.”
“No.”
Bethany’s voice steadied.
“You did.”
Sylvia hung up.
Three days later, a second problem appeared.
Alden Urban Development withdrew its offer to purchase Hartley’s Corner.
At first Josie thought they had won.
Daniel did not.
“They withdrew because they think title is too dangerous.”
“Isn’t that good?”
“For the sale, yes.”
“Then what?”
“They are now suing Sylvia for misrepresentation.”
Josie smiled.
Daniel remained serious.
“And Sylvia is arguing that Enzo interfered with the transaction for financial gain.”
Enzo shrugged.
“I have been blamed for worse.”
“She is requesting discovery into Ferrante Market Holdings.”
His expression changed.
Josie noticed.
“What does that mean?”
“Financial records,” Daniel said. “Communications. Potentially historical business transactions.”
Enzo stood.
“Then she gets what is legally required.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Everything?”
Enzo looked through the window.
Old Harrow Market had existed under Ferrante ownership for decades.
Its history was not clean.
Neither was his.
Josie understood.
“If helping me puts you at risk—”
“It doesn’t.”
“You hesitated.”
“I was deciding how annoyed I am.”
“That isn’t what I saw.”
Enzo turned toward her.
“You think I came downstairs that night because you dropped oranges?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Josie frowned.
“I came down because I recognized the crowd.”
“What does that mean?”
Enzo looked older suddenly.
“When I was sixteen, my father accused a vendor of stealing.”
Josie waited.
“He was wrong.”
“What happened?”
“The market humiliated the man publicly. People shouted. Someone hit him. Others joined.”
Josie felt cold.
“Did he die?”
“No. But he lost the stall. His family left Providence.”
“Did you help?”
Enzo looked at her.
“No.”
The word carried thirty years of shame.
“I watched.”
Josie understood.
“That’s why you picked up the oranges.”
“I was tired of being the man who watched.”
For the first time, Enzo Ferrante ceased being only the feared owner of Old Harrow Market.
He became another person standing inside an old failure.
Josie looked toward the floor below.
“Why do people call you mafia?”
Enzo’s mouth tightened.
“Because my family was.”
“Was?”
“Parts still are.”
“And you?”
A long silence.
“I have done things I would not ask you to defend.”
Josie appreciated the answer because it was not clean.
“Are you dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Should I be afraid of you?”
“That depends what you plan to do.”
She raised an eyebrow.
Enzo almost smiled.
Then his expression softened.
“No.”
Josie nodded.
“That’s a very mafia answer.”
“It was the best you were getting.”
The preliminary hearing was now ten days away.
Every day brought another document.
Another interview.
Another memory.
Then Daniel found something that changed the case completely.
The signatures on the 2015 transfer had been compared with genuine childhood records belonging to Josie and Bethany.
Bethany’s signature was forged.
Josie’s was forged.
And the handwriting expert believed both signatures had been written by the same person.
The same writer had also completed portions of the North Quay invoices.
Daniel placed the report on the table.
“Can they identify Sylvia?”
“Not conclusively from handwriting alone.”
“But?”
“But it creates a pattern.”
Josie looked toward Bethany.
Her sister’s face was pale.
“There’s one more thing,” Bethany said.
Everyone turned.
“After Mom died, Aunt Sylvia made me practice Mom’s signature.”
Daniel became very still.
“What?”
“She said the bank needed it for old checks.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty.”
“Did Sylvia practice too?”
Bethany nodded.
“She was better than me.”
Daniel closed his folder.
“That needs to go in your statement.”
Bethany looked terrified again.
Josie reached beneath the table.
May you like
She held her sister’s hand.
This time Bethany did not pull away.
