Chapter 10 - Rebecca’s Last NightMichael denied it.
Violently.
The moment Mercer confronted him with Maya’s accusation, he stood so quickly his chair fell backward.
“I never met Rebecca Holloway.”
“You were at her memorial.”
“I was not.”
Mercer showed him a photograph.
Michael stared.
He wasn’t visible.
But Ethan was.
“Your phone records place you near Lake Mercer the weekend she died.”
“I traveled constantly.”
“Your company paid for a hotel twelve miles away.”
Michael shook his head.
“I was meeting a client.”
“Which client?”
“I don’t remember. It was three years ago.”
Claire watched again.
She had known Michael for twenty-seven years.
She knew how he lied.
This time she couldn’t tell.
Maya eventually agreed to meet.
Not at the station.
At a small church outside Durango.
Claire insisted on going.
Mercer objected.
Claire refused to stay behind.
Thirty minutes later, under police protection, Claire entered the empty church.
Maya sat in the rear pew.
Twenty-seven.
Black hair.
Bruise along her jaw.
Bandage around one wrist.
A camera strap crossed her chest, though the camera itself was gone.
When she saw Claire, she stood.
“You survived.”
Claire nodded.
Maya’s eyes filled with tears.
“I thought I watched another woman die.”
Claire understood immediately.
“Rebecca was your mother.”
Maya nodded.
They sat together.
“My mom met Ethan four years ago,” Maya began. “He was twenty-six. She was forty-seven.”
Claire felt the familiar pattern.
“He made her feel alive.”
“Exactly.”
Maya looked down.
“She’d been divorced. Lonely. I hated him because I thought he wanted her money.”
“You were right.”
“I didn’t know how right.”
Rebecca had changed insurance beneficiaries.
Added Ethan to a property deed.
Lent him $180,000.
Then, according to Maya, she discovered another woman.
Mara.
“She thought Ethan was cheating,” Maya said.
Claire almost smiled bitterly.
“He was married.”
“Mom found out.”
“What happened?”
“She told him she was ending everything.”
Two days later Rebecca went kayaking.
Ethan joined her.
His name never appeared in the police report.
“How?”
“He told investigators Mom went alone.”
“Where were you?”
“College.”
Maya’s hands tightened.
“Six months after she died, I found an old memory card hidden in her desk.”
Photographs.
Rebecca had secretly photographed Ethan meeting Mara.
One image showed Ethan passing documents to Michael Bennett.
Claire’s heart accelerated.
“What kind of documents?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why do you think Michael helped kill her?”
“Because of a video.”
Maya removed a small flash drive.
Mercer stepped closer.
She handed it to Claire.
“My mother recorded Ethan without him knowing.”
They played it on a laptop.
Rebecca’s face appeared first.
She had positioned her phone on a bookshelf.
Ethan entered the room.
“You lied to me,” Rebecca said.
“About what?”
“Mara.”
Ethan became still.
“Who told you?”
“I saw you.”
Rebecca threw photographs onto a table.
Then another photograph.
Michael.
Claire leaned closer.
Rebecca said, “And I know what you’re doing with Bennett.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
“What exactly do you think you know?”
“You’ve been using his company to identify women.”
Claire froze.
Michael’s company.
Bennett Private Wealth.
Before their divorce, Michael had built a successful financial-advisory firm.
Thousands of clients.
Most wealthy.
Many single or divorced.
Maya paused the video.
“My mother believed someone inside Bennett Private Wealth was giving Ethan information about female clients.”
Claire felt nauseated.
“Michael.”
“I assumed so.”
Mercer resumed the recording.
Rebecca’s voice shook.
“I’m going to the police.”
Ethan stepped toward her.
“If you do that, Michael loses everything.”
Rebecca replied, “Good.”
The recording ended.
Claire looked at Maya.
“This doesn’t prove Michael knew Ethan planned to kill her.”
“No.”
“Then why accuse him?”
Maya stared at her.
“Because three hours before my mother died, she called me.”
Maya’s voice cracked.
“She told me she was meeting someone who could prove everything.”
“Ethan?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Michael.”
Claire’s blood ran cold.
“She said Michael had finally agreed to help her expose Ethan.”
Mercer frowned.
“That suggests cooperation, not murder.”
Maya nodded.
“At first.”
Claire waited.
Maya swallowed.
“My mother left me a voicemail later.”
She played it.
Rebecca sounded terrified.
“Maya, if something happens to me, Michael changed his mind.”
Claire shut her eyes.
The voicemail continued.
“He says Ethan knows about his debts. He says he can’t help me anymore.”
Static.
Then Rebecca whispered:
“They’re both here.”
The message ended.
Claire opened her eyes.
“Both?”
Maya nodded.
“Ethan and Michael were with my mother the night she died.”
Claire turned toward Mercer.
But before anyone spoke, Maya’s phone vibrated.
She looked down.
A text.
Her face lost color.
Claire read it over her shoulder.
It was a photograph taken seconds earlier.
Claire and Maya sitting together inside the church.
Underneath:
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING HER TO ME.
Claire looked toward the stained-glass windows.
May you like
Somebody was outside.
Watching them.
Related Stories
