Chapter 3
I didn’t sleep that night.
Neither did Emma.
Sophie eventually fell asleep against my chest in a private hospital room while doctors examined both girls.
They were dehydrated.
Exhausted.
Underweight.
But safe.
Safe.
I kept repeating that word because I needed it to be true.
Emma sat beside the window wrapped in a hospital blanket.
I watched her stare into the darkness.
“What did Mrs. Hargrove mean about Mom?”
Emma looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She was arguing with Claire.”
My heart jumped.
“You heard them?”
Emma nodded.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
That meant Claire had visited Mrs. Hargrove the day before our wedding.
While telling me she was spending the afternoon with her bridesmaids.
“What were they arguing about?”
Emma squeezed the blanket.
“Mrs. Hargrove said she was done.”
“Done with what?”
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
She closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“She said, ‘Rachel wasn’t supposed to die that night.’”
My body went cold.
I had been beside Rachel when she died.
Or at least I thought I had.
Cancer had weakened her terribly.
During her final week, she was admitted to a private hospice facility.
I stayed there almost constantly.
But the night she died, Claire convinced me to go home.
“You haven’t slept in three days,” she told me.
“I’ll stay with Rachel.”
At the time, Claire was Rachel’s friend.
That was how I knew her.
She had been helping us through the worst months of our lives.
I left at 11:20 p.m.
At 2:14 a.m., Claire called.
Rachel was gone.
For eight months, I had hated myself for leaving.
Now I wondered whether someone had wanted me gone.
My phone rang.
Michael.
I answered immediately.
“I’m at your house,” he said.
“Why?”
“The police asked me to find anything related to Rachel’s estate.”
“And?”
“You need to come here.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you find?”
“A safe.”
I frowned.
“We don’t have a safe.”
“You do now.”
Two detectives accompanied me home while Michael stayed at the hospital with the girls.
My house looked unfamiliar when I walked inside.
Claire’s coat hung near the door.
Her coffee mug sat in the kitchen.
Wedding gifts were stacked in the dining room.
That morning, I had thought we were becoming a family.
By midnight, I wanted every trace of her gone.
Michael led us upstairs.
He had been searching my old office when he noticed scratches near a built-in cabinet.
Behind it was a small wall safe.
“I never knew this was here.”
One detective examined it.
“Who renovated this room?”
“Claire arranged it.”
Of course she did.
A locksmith opened the safe.
Inside were folders.
Bank records.
Copies of identification documents.
And Rachel’s blue sewing box.
I stared at it.
Emma had told me Mrs. Hargrove had the box.
Yet there it was.
Then I understood.
Mrs. Hargrove must have had it earlier.
Claire had taken it back.
I opened the lid.
Rachel’s needles and thread were still inside.
So was a small silver necklace.
I touched it.
Rachel wore that necklace the day Emma was born.
I nearly broke down.
Then the detective lifted a folder.
“Mr. Bennett?”
I looked up.
“There’s something here with your signature.”
He handed it to me.
It was a custody authorization.
It claimed I had voluntarily transferred temporary custody of Emma and Sophie to an overseas guardian.
My signature was at the bottom.
Except I had never signed it.
“That’s forged.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely.”
Another document showed withdrawals from a trust account.
Rachel’s trust.
The girls were beneficiaries.
The transfers began three weeks before Rachel died.
Small amounts first.
Then larger ones.
$20,000.
$45,000.
$110,000.
The final transfer was made two days after Rachel’s death.
$300,000.
The receiving account belonged to a company I had never heard of.
The detective photographed everything.
Then he found something else.
An envelope.
My name was written on it.
But this wasn’t Rachel’s handwriting.
It was Claire’s.
Inside was a photocopy of a life insurance policy.
Rachel’s policy.
I knew about it.
What I didn’t know was that the beneficiary had apparently been changed shortly before her death.
Not to me.
Not to our daughters.
To a private trust administered by Claire.
I stared at the paper.
“That’s impossible.”
The detective looked at me.
“Why?”
“Rachel would never do this.”
My phone rang.
Helena.
I answered.
She was crying.
“Daniel, I found something.”
“What?”
“I went through Rachel’s old messages.”
My pulse quickened.
“She sent me a voice recording four days before she died.”
I gripped the phone.
“What does it say?”
Helena took a shaky breath.
“She said Claire had been asking questions about her medication.”
I couldn’t speak.
“She said Claire wanted to know what would happen if she accidentally took too much.”
The room went silent.
One detective stepped closer.
I put Helena on speaker.
“Did Rachel sound afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She was going to.”
Helena started crying harder.
“She said she wanted proof first.”
I thought about that final night.
Claire insisting I leave.
Claire staying behind.
Claire calling me less than three hours later.
My knees weakened.
The detective caught my arm.
“Sit down.”
I couldn’t.
I walked to the window.
My daughters had lost their mother.
Then they had been taken from their father.
Someone had stolen months of their childhood.
And I had almost married the woman connected to all of it.
My phone buzzed.
Michael.
I answered.
His voice was urgent.
“Daniel, get back to the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Emma remembered something.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“What?”
“She remembered where Mrs. Hargrove kept Rachel’s old phone.”
I grabbed my coat.
Then Michael said something else.
“And Daniel?”
“Yes?”
“Mrs. Hargrove is here.”
I froze.
“At the hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Michael lowered his voice.
“She says she wants police protection.”
I looked at the detectives.
“From whom?”
There was a pause.
Then my brother answered.
“From Claire.”
When I returned to the hospital, Mrs. Hargrove was sitting between two officers.
She looked nothing like the woman I remembered.
Her hands shook.
Her eyes were swollen.
The moment she saw me, she started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
I stopped several feet away.
“Where were my daughters?”
Her face crumpled.
“At my house.”
“For six months?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Claire paid me.”
I felt sick.
“To hide my children?”
“She told me it was temporary.”
“Why would you believe her?”
Mrs. Hargrove looked down.
“Because she had documents with your signature.”
“Forged documents.”
“I know that now.”
I stepped closer.
“You gave my daughters medicine.”
Her face changed.
“Only twice.”
My fists clenched.
A detective moved beside me.
Mrs. Hargrove started speaking faster.
“Claire gave me drops. She said Emma was having panic attacks.”
“You gave my nine-year-old daughter something without knowing what it was?”
“I was wrong.”
“That doesn’t begin to cover it.”
She cried.
Then she reached into her bag.
An officer immediately stopped her.
“It’s a key,” she said.
The officer removed it.
Small.
Brass.
Ordinary.
Mrs. Hargrove looked at me.
“Rachel gave me that before she died.”
My breath caught.
“She told me if Claire ever tried to separate you from the girls, I should open locker 317 at South Station.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Claire found out I had the key.”
She looked toward Emma’s hospital room.
“And yesterday, Emma heard us arguing about it.”
I stared at the tiny brass key.
“What’s inside the locker?”
Mrs. Hargrove wiped her tears.
“I don’t know.”
May you like
Then she looked directly into my eyes.
“But Rachel told me it contained the one thing that could prove who she was afraid of before she died.”
