Chapter 9 - The Woman in Purple
Mallory told the detective she had gone to her mother's house for a black shawl. She said she didn't touch the envelope, didn't know what it contained and had every right to use a spare key she'd held for years.
"The shawl you wore to the funeral?" Moreno asked.
"I didn't wear a shawl. I changed my mind."
The camera showed Mallory arriving just after nine and leaving twenty-eight minutes later with a small handbag. It didn't show what she'd taken. Moreno didn't call it proof of theft, but the timing mattered.
Daniel learned the details through his attorney, Mara Monroe, whom Ben had recommended to help him navigate his own case. Monroe warned him that his mother's finances and his sister's possible crimes did not erase the charge he faced.
"Your sister threw first," she said. "The video makes that clear. It also shows you striking after the immediate threat had passed. I won't tell you something the evidence doesn't support."
"I know."
"Do you? Because I need you to stop saying you had no choice. You had one. A terrible one, under terrible pressure, but still a choice."
Daniel stared at his hands. "What happens to Emma if I go to prison?"
"We're going to prepare for every possibility, and we'll make sure her care is covered. But I can't predict an outcome."
Later, at the hospital, Ruth came to Daniel with news. "Mallory called me last night. Said Helen promised her the cross. She sounded like a little girl who had been left outside a birthday party. Then she said something that scared me."
"What?"
"She said, 'If Claire had stayed home like she was told, none of this would have happened.'"
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He found his answer in an unread message on Claire's phone, which Ben had brought with her belongings. It was from Mallory, sent the morning of the service.
WEAR THAT CROSS AND YOU'LL REGRET IT.
