Chapter 3 - The Sister on the Screen
Marco was outside buying coffee when the video arrived.
Sheriff Bell locked the conference-room door.
“Is your man armed?”
Julian looked toward the front entrance.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re going to call him and tell him to leave his weapon secured in his vehicle before he comes inside.”
Julian’s jaw shifted.
For an instant, Lena saw the man everyone used to obey.
Then he picked up his phone.
Marco complied, though his smile disappeared when two deputies met him at the entrance.
“What’s happening?”
“We have questions,” Sheriff Bell said.
He looked past her to Julian.
Julian gave him nothing.
The video played once.
Marco watched without moving.
When it ended, he exhaled through his nose.
“Sophia always did enjoy a performance.”
Lena stood.
“Where is she?”
“How would I know?”
“You heard her.”
“I heard a woman with a history of lying say my name.”
It was an effective answer because it was partly true.
Sophia had lied throughout their childhood. Small lies first: broken dishes, missing jewelry, cruel notes Lena supposedly wrote. Their mother had excused them as insecurity.
Later, the lies grew expensive.
Julian asked, “Did you arrange the settlement?”
Marco’s eyes flicked toward him.
“Your attorney handled it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I delivered paperwork.”
“From whom?”
“Marianne.”
“And the bank details?”
Marco’s silence lasted a second too long.
Sheriff Bell leaned forward.
“You’re free to decline further questions and speak with counsel.”
“I think I will.”
He rose.
Lena wanted him stopped. Wanted every locked door in the world to close around the people who had rearranged her life.
But Sheriff Bell couldn’t hold a man simply because they distrusted him.
A deputy escorted Marco outside.
Julian watched him go.
“Don’t send anyone after him,” Bell said.
Julian turned back.
“If he’s involved—”
“Then you will want evidence that survives something stronger than your temper.”
Lena almost smiled.
Almost.
The sheriff contacted state investigators. Julian’s attorney reached a federal prosecutor familiar with Daniel Price’s case. The room filled with the ordinary language of actual work: preservation requests, interview times, copies, dates.
Nobody promised a miracle.
It made Lena feel safer than any armed escort had.
That afternoon, the unknown number called again.
Bell signaled for Lena to answer on speaker.
At first there was only breathing.
Then Sophia said, “Please don’t hang up.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who is with you?”
“I can’t talk long.”
Lena gripped the table.
“Are you hurt?”
A shaky breath.
“Not badly.”
Despite everything, Lena remembered her sister at seven, standing barefoot after a thunderstorm, pretending she wasn’t frightened.
“What happened that night?” Lena asked.
Sophia began crying.
“I thought if you left, he would choose me.”
Julian’s face hardened.
“Did you tell her I was pregnant?”
The question escaped before Lena could stop it.
Sophia went quiet.
“No.”
“Did you know?”
“No, Lena. I swear.”
“What did you do?”
“I told him I’d taken pills. I hadn’t. I spilled wine on my jacket and pretended I couldn’t stand. He caught me.”
Lena stared at Julian.
He didn’t move.
“I kissed him when I heard you in the hall,” Sophia whispered. “He pushed me back. You were already gone.”
For five years, Lena had carried one frozen image.
Now it shifted.
It did not vanish.
Julian had still allowed a household where deception flourished. He had still trusted people Lena had learned not to trust.
But the wound she had built her entire understanding around had a different shape.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Mom said you’d come back.”
“And the money?”
Sophia made a small, broken sound.
“I spent some. Marco took the rest.”
A door scraped in the background.
Sophia’s voice dropped.
“He said he could make Julian stop searching. He said there were ways to keep messages from reaching him.”
“Who has you?” Bell asked.
“Renata’s people. They think I kept Daniel’s copy.”
“What copy?”
Sophia inhaled sharply.
Then she said, very clearly, “Lena, remember where Dad hid the Christmas money.”
The call ended.
Lena remained motionless.
Their father had died when she was sixteen.
Every December, he had tucked cash inside a battered wooden birdhouse on the back porch.
Sophia knew Lena would remember.
May you like
“She knows where she is,” Lena said.
And for the first time in years, her sister had told her something she could use.
