Chapter 3
Chloe’s mouth fell open. The horrific reality settled in, and she threw herself at him, beating her fists against his chest with raw, hysterical fury.
“You monster! You’re my father!”
Arthur frantically grabbed her wrists, trying to muffle her screams. “Shut up! Keep your voice down! If your mother finds out, this family is ruined! Do you want the neighbors to hear?! Do you want everyone to know?!”
Even after what he had done, his only concern was protecting his reputation.
Downstairs, the front door unlocked and slammed shut.
“Arthur? Rebecca? Can someone help me with these bags?”
Evelyn had returned early from Richmond.
Panic seized both of them. Arthur scrambled to button his shirt, while Chloe bolted into my adjoining bathroom, slamming and locking the door as sob after sob wracked her body.
I walked downstairs calmly and met Evelyn in the kitchen as she set down her groceries.
“Where is everyone?” she asked, looking around with a frown. “Why does it feel like a funeral in here?”
“I don’t know, Evelyn,” I said smoothly. “I just heard screaming upstairs. Arthur and Chloe were locked in my bedroom together. They wouldn’t tell me what happened.”
Her face hardened. “In your bedroom?”
She marched upstairs. Above, Arthur and Chloe attempted to piece together a flimsy lie—that Chloe had lost an expensive gold necklace and Arthur was scolding her for being careless. Evelyn didn’t entirely buy it, but true to form, she chose not to push further. Maintaining appearances was more important than the truth.
By seven that evening, the tension in the house was suffocating. David had cut his business trip short and rushed home from the airport.
When I walked into the living room, all four of them were waiting for me like a panel of judges.
Evelyn was the first to attack. “You malicious, toxic woman! You slipped something into Chloe’s drink to frame Arthur and destroy this family!”
David, his eyes red and swollen, pointed a trembling finger at me. “My dad told us everything, Rebecca. You put something in that glass, staged this entire scene, and now you’re trying to blackmail my family for money! How could you do this?!”
I looked at them one by one. Arthur sat in his armchair, staring at the floor with crocodile tears in his eyes. Chloe, completely broken, sat in the corner repeating that she couldn’t remember anything. Evelyn was fiercely defending the lie, and my own husband had decided to brand me a villain without even asking for my side.
“So that’s the story you all agreed on?” I asked quietly. “Make me the scapegoat?”
“You have no proof!” Evelyn spat. “It’s your word against the four of us!”
I offered a small, cold smile. “You’re wrong. It’s your word against a recording.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket, unlocked it, and set it on the coffee table. I hit play.
The room filled with the static sound of the recording. Then, the distinct creak of my bedroom door opening. Heavy, deliberate footsteps followed.
Then came Arthur’s thick, disgusting whisper through the phone speaker:
“Rebecca… finally asleep. I knew that juice would knock you out cold…”
David stopped breathing.
Evelyn recoiled as if she had been struck across the face. Chloe let out a hollow, broken sob that sounded barely human. Arthur tried to push himself up from his chair, but his legs gave out, and he collapsed back onto the cushion, staring at the phone in horror.
I paused the recording right before the audio turned worse.
The living room fell into absolute, deafening silence.
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“That’s only the first half,” I said, pulling a thick yellow manila folder out of my bag and dropping it onto the table beside the phone. “And when you hear the rest—and read what’s inside this file—not a single person in this room will ever be able to pretend to be innocent again.”
David looked at the folder, his hands shaking violently, completely unaware that the nightmare was only just beginning.
