Chapter 4
I vomited in the police-station bathroom.
Detective Ruiz waited outside until I could stand again.
When I returned to the interview room, she gave me water.
“I need you to think carefully,” she said. “What happened before you fell?”
I closed my eyes.
Ryan and I had argued that night.
He wanted me to sign papers connected to a home-equity loan.
I refused.
He followed me toward the basement, saying the fuse box needed attention.
At the top of the stairs, the lights went out.
Then I felt pressure between my shoulder blades.
I fell twelve steps.
Ryan told the paramedics he had been upstairs in the shower.
I had believed him because believing anything else would have destroyed my life.
Now the truth was doing that anyway.
Ruiz asked if I was willing to provide a formal statement.
“Yes.”
My voice shook.
“But I want him stopped.”
That evening, Natalie helped me request a stronger protective order.
She also filed the divorce petition.
Ryan received the papers outside his attorney’s office.
Ten minutes later, he called Thomas.
Thomas was sitting in my living room when his phone rang.
He placed it on speaker.
“You turned her against me,” Ryan shouted.
“No,” Thomas replied. “You did that yourself.”
“You’re choosing Claire over your own son.”
“I’m choosing the truth.”
Ryan laughed bitterly.
“You should be careful with that word.”
Then the call ended.
Thomas’s face lost all color.
“What did he mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
But he was lying.
The next day, Brooke came to see me.
She carried a small wooden box.
“I found this in Mom’s closet,” she said.
Inside were dozens of letters tied with a blue ribbon.
They had been written more than thirty years earlier.
Most were signed by a man named Victor Hale.
Thomas read one letter and sat down heavily.
“Victor was Diane’s boyfriend before me.”
Brooke looked confused.
“So?”
Thomas opened another letter.
The date was six months before Ryan’s birth.
The words were intimate.
They also discussed a secret meeting at a lake house.
Thomas stared at Ryan’s birth date written on the family Bible.
“No,” he whispered.
I understood before Brooke did.
Ryan might not be Thomas’s biological son.
The discovery explained Ryan’s threat, but it did not explain the fraud.
Then I found a newer envelope beneath the letters.
Inside was an obituary.
Victor Hale had died eight months earlier.
He had owned Hale Medical Group, one of the largest private clinic networks in the state.
A handwritten note appeared at the bottom.
Ryan is entitled to his share. We only need proof.
Brooke covered her mouth.
“Mom knew.”
Thomas looked devastated.
Diane and Ryan had not only stolen from me.
They had been preparing to claim part of Victor’s estate.
Natalie warned us not to confront them.
Detective Ruiz collected the letters and began contacting the estate’s attorneys.
That night, I was upstairs when I smelled smoke.
I ran into the hallway.
Flames were crawling up the curtains in the living room.
Someone had broken a side window and thrown a burning bottle inside.
I called 911 and grabbed the fire extinguisher.
The flames spread across the rug.
Smoke filled my lungs.
As I fought toward the front door, I heard pounding from outside.
Thomas smashed the glass panel and reached through the broken door.
“Claire!”
He pulled me onto the porch moments before the curtains collapsed.
Firefighters arrived quickly, but the living room was destroyed.
Detective Ruiz found a piece of cloth attached to the broken bottle.
Three letters had been written across it in black paint.
LIAR.
Security footage from my neighbor’s camera showed a dark car stopping outside.
The driver’s face was hidden.
May you like
But the passenger turned toward the window.
It was Diane.
