Chapter 14 - The Last Night of Our Mother
In the state police interview room, we listened to the tape with an investigator and our lawyer present. I wished there were another way. There wasn't.
Mom's voice came first, calm but tight. "Daniel, I found the missing rent checks. I found the forged deed. The children and I are leaving."
Dad laughed. "With what money? You think your sister Celia will take you in?"
"She already said she would."
A door slammed. Mom cried out. Then Celia's voice, younger but unmistakable: "Daniel, let her go. The kids are upstairs."
"Take the children out the front," he ordered. "Don't come back."
A metallic clatter followed. Mom shouted, "He locked it! Celia, the key!"
The recording ended in a burst of static.
Celia wept into both hands. When she could speak, she told us what happened. She'd brought us out to the road, then heard glass break. Daniel said the garage was empty. He claimed Mom had escaped out the back.
"I wanted to believe him," Celia said. "I heard her calling. I still got into the car."
"You left her," Lucía whispered.
"Yes. I did."
I remembered waking in the back seat to a red glow over the treetops. Celia had held me so tightly I'd thought she was trying to keep me warm.
"Why didn't you tell the police?" I asked.
"Daniel threatened you. After his fake warehouse death, he called from new numbers. He told me he'd take Lucía if I spoke. Then he made me handle the trust. Every lie made the next one easier."
The investigator asked detailed questions and made no promise of immunity. Celia answered without looking at us. She admitted signing false reports, sending checks to Mercer, and participating in the fake funeral. Fear had shaped her choices, but it hadn't made them harmless.
Afterward, Lucía sat with me in the hall. "I thought I'd feel better knowing."
"Me too."
May you like
Nora approached holding a fresh report from the lab. They'd identified the woman's fingerprints on the fake nurse's medication tray. The woman was not an unknown hired criminal.
She was Harold Finch's daughter, the person who had helped Lucía uncover the ledger in the first place.
