Chapter 10 - Rebecca Hale)
Laura crossed the room slowly.
Rebecca remained near the door.
For eight years Laura had believed her sister was dead.
Now Rebecca was standing beneath the same porch light she had once helped Laura install.
Laura touched her face.
Rebecca began crying.
Then Laura slapped her.
The sound shocked everyone.
Laura's hand immediately fell.
"I'm sorry."
Rebecca nodded through tears.
"I deserved worse."
"No."
Laura pulled her sister into her arms.
The embrace lasted only seconds.
Then Rick said, "Very touching."
Rebecca turned.
Her expression changed completely.
"You don't get to talk."
Rick laughed.
"You still owe me money."
"I owed you twenty thousand dollars."
"You owed me silence."
Richard closed the front door.
"No one is leaving until I understand what happened."
Rick looked at him.
"You think you control this house?"
"No."
Richard looked at Laura.
"She does."
Laura stepped beside her father.
Rick stared at the three Hales.
For the first time, he was outnumbered by people who no longer believed him.
Rebecca removed an old flip phone from her coat pocket.
"This belonged to James."
Emily stared.
Rebecca continued.
"The morning he died, James called Richard from the highway."
Richard frowned.
"My phone records never showed it."
"Because he didn't call your current number."
Rebecca looked ashamed.
"He called the old chambers number you stopped using when you left the bench."
Richard's face changed.
"That number had been reassigned."
Rebecca nodded.
"To a forwarding service Rick controlled."
Laura looked at Rick.
"You intercepted the call."
Rick said nothing.
Rebecca pressed play on the old phone.
James's voice filled the kitchen.
"Richard, I have enough. I'm heading to the state office now. I think Dawson knows."
Then another man's voice responded.
Calm.
Professional.
"James, don't use Interstate 70. There was an accident near the east interchange. Take Route 16."
Emily looked at Rick.
The voice was his.
Younger.
But unmistakable.
James answered, "Understood."
The recording ended.
Rebecca continued.
"There was no accident near the interchange."
Richard's jaw tightened.
"Route 16 was where James's brakes failed."
Rebecca nodded.
Laura looked at Rick as if she had never seen him before.
"You sent him there."
Rick's expression remained hard.
"You can't prove I knew the brakes would fail."
Rebecca lifted another paper.
"I can."
Rick's eyes changed.
Rebecca continued.
"You paid Calvin Moore, the mechanic who inspected James's car."
Richard asked, "The falsified report."
"That report is fake evidence."
Emily frowned.
"What?"
Rebecca looked at her.
"James suspected Rick had paid Calvin. But the copy James found was incomplete. Calvin didn't just falsify an inspection."
She unfolded another document.
"He replaced a brake line with a damaged one."
Laura staggered backward.
Richard caught her arm.
Emily's stomach twisted.
Rick shook his head.
"That's a photocopy."
Rebecca said, "The original is in a deposit box."
Rick's confidence disappeared.
"Where?"
Rebecca smiled sadly.
"Exactly where you could never find it."
Rick took a step toward her.
Emily moved between him and Rebecca.
Richard did the same.
Rick looked around the room.
Then he started laughing.
"Do you people think this makes you clean?"
No one answered.
He pointed at Rebecca.
"She helped me."
Laura stared at her sister.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
"Yes."
The word hit harder than anything else.
Laura whispered, "What did you do?"
Rebecca looked at Noah.
Then Emily.
"I was drowning in debt. Rick offered me money to access James's files. I gave him passwords. I copied schedules. I told him when James met with Richard."
Laura's face crumpled.
"I never knew he planned to hurt James."
Rick laughed.
"You knew enough."
Rebecca ignored him.
"After the crash, I realized what I'd helped him do. I stole the ledger and hid it in the pantry room."
Noah whispered, "You took me."
Rebecca looked at him.
Tears filled her eyes.
"Yes."
Laura stared.
"Why?"
"Because Rick was coming."
Rebecca's voice shook.
"You were at the hospital signing paperwork. I came to the house for the ledger. Noah was asleep. He woke up and followed me."
She looked at Noah.
"I'm sorry."
Noah asked, "Why did you paint?"
Rebecca almost smiled.
"Because the door was bright white. I needed Rick to think the green room meant the shed."
Emily suddenly understood.
The entire mystery had been built around a child's memory and one can of paint.
Richard looked at Rebecca.
"Why did you disappear?"
"Rick threatened to expose me as part of James's theft investigation."
"But James was investigating Rick."
"I know that now."
Rebecca looked at Laura.
"Back then, I was a coward."
Rick muttered, "Still are."
Rebecca turned.
"No."
She placed the old phone on the table.
"Not anymore."
Then she looked at Richard.
"There is one more recording."
Rick lunged for the phone.
Emily grabbed it first.
Rick's fist struck the table.
The metal box beneath the laundry towels nearby shifted.
Rick saw it.
His face transformed.
"The box."
He shoved past Richard and ran toward it.
Noah screamed.
Rick tore the towels away.
He opened the metal box.
Empty.
Laura looked at him.
"You really thought we'd leave the originals here?"
Rick stopped.
Richard smiled for the first time.
"The documents left this house thirty minutes ago."
Rick stared at them.
May you like
Then his gaze moved toward the back door.
He ran.
