Chapter 7 - Emily's Confession
Emily confessed after she learned Nora Keene had been captured.
She requested Claire, Daniel, and Detective Voss in the room. She refused to speak if Evelyn was present.
The woman who entered the interview chamber no longer resembled the sneering sister from the bathroom. Emily's hair was unwashed, her wrists marked by handcuffs, and terror had stripped away her arrogance. Yet Claire remembered the messages. Fear did not erase choice.
"Victor contacted me when I was twenty-one," Emily began. "He said you had stolen my life."
"I was a child," Claire said.
"I know that now."
"You knew enough to sleep with Ryan."
Emily flinched. "That started before Victor. I hated how he looked at you, like you were the only person in the room. Then he started complaining about money. I thought taking him from you would prove you were not untouchable."
Daniel turned away in disgust.
Emily's voice shook. Victor showed her records suggesting Claire was not Evelyn's biological child. He claimed Lillian had disinherited the rightful heirs and hidden millions inside Bennett Restoration Group. If Emily helped recover the house and company shares, Victor promised to correct the family trust.
"Did Mother know?" Claire asked.
Emily stared at the table. "She knew about the transfer. She said you would eventually forgive us because family assets belong to family blood."
"And the crash?"
Tears rose in Emily's eyes. "Mother said it was supposed to scare you. Ryan said the same. Victor sent the messages about the guardrail. I told myself he was exaggerating."
"You asked about identifying my body."
Emily covered her mouth.
Claire leaned forward. "You do not get to cry before you answer."
"He told me the necklace would be planted in an empty car. He said you would be taken somewhere safe until the documents were signed."
"You believed a man arranging my disappearance would keep me safe?"
"I wanted to believe it."
The confession continued for two hours. Emily had forged Claire's signature using samples supplied by Evelyn's accountant. She had placed the relay device in the house. Ryan had copied Claire's medical information. Nora Keene coordinated surveillance. Victor remained a voice, a number, and occasionally a silhouette behind frosted glass.
Then Emily revealed why she had recorded the video hidden in the piano.
"I knew Victor would kill me after the transfer. I made the recording as insurance."
"Who was the man questioning you?" Voss asked.
Emily swallowed. "Father."
Daniel froze. Their father, Thomas Bennett, had supposedly died in a boating accident sixteen years earlier. His body had never been recovered.
Claire remembered Evelyn dressed in black beside an empty coffin. She remembered Daniel gripping her hand. She remembered Emily asking whether their father would be cold in the water.
"Thomas is alive?" Daniel whispered.
"Victor helped him disappear," Emily said. "Father has worked for Alder Ridge ever since."
Emily had met him twice in secret. Thomas claimed he vanished because Lillian discovered his involvement in the St. Arden scheme. Victor promised protection if Thomas helped track the missing ledgers.
"Where is he now?" Voss asked.
"I do not know. But he is the one who arranged Friday's route."
Claire's phone vibrated inside the evidence tray beside Voss. The screen displayed an incoming video call from Claire's own number.
Voss answered on speaker.
A dim live image appeared. Evelyn sat tied to a chair in what looked like an abandoned chapel. Blood marked her temple. Behind her stood a man with gray hair and familiar eyes.
Thomas Bennett.
He looked older, but Claire knew him instantly.
"Hello, children," he said.
Daniel gripped the table until his knuckles whitened.
May you like
Thomas smiled without warmth. "Your mother has made several expensive mistakes. Bring Eleanor and the ledgers to St. Arden before midnight. Come without police, or Evelyn will finally become the widow she pretended to be."
During a break in Emily's confession, Claire stood in the corridor with Daniel. He asked whether she remembered the summer Emily broke her arm falling from the apple tree. Claire did. She had slept on the floor beside Emily's bed for three nights because her sister feared the cast would stop her breathing. The memory did not soften the crime. It made it heavier. Monsters were easy to reject; sisters were not. Daniel said he wished he could divide the Emily from that summer from the Emily who forged the transfer. Claire answered that both had lived in the same person, and justice had to survive that complication.
