Chapter 14 - SOPHIA’S LAST NIGHT
Ryan’s outburst changed everything.
He had said too much.
Until then, his attorneys had maintained he barely knew Sophia.
Now investigators wanted to know why he believed I didn’t know what happened to her.
Police interviewed him again.
He refused to speak.
But his former college roommate Daniel did.
And this time, Daniel remembered something.
A voicemail.
Ryan had left it months before Sophia died.
Daniel had deleted it.
His phone provider hadn’t.
Investigators recovered a copy.
Ryan’s voice filled the interrogation room.
“I’m done paying for everybody. One clean break and I can start over.”
Then another line.
“If she’s gone, the policy fixes everything.”
He never said Sophia’s name.
But the date mattered.
The policy had been issued six days earlier.
Then investigators found surveillance video from a gas station near the crash site.
Ryan’s truck passed the station at 8:42 p.m.
Sophia crashed at approximately 9:17.
He returned in the opposite direction at 9:36.
Thirty-five minutes.
That was the window.
A mechanic reexamined photographs of Sophia’s wreck.
He noticed damage to a steering component that had originally been blamed on the crash itself.
Could it have been sabotaged?
Possibly.
Could they prove Ryan did it?
Maybe.
Then Travis Boone asked for another meeting.
He had seen the news.
Seen Sophia’s photo.
And he recognized her.
“Ryan showed me that woman once,” he told investigators.
“When?”
“A year ago.”
“Why?”
“He asked me how hard it would be to mess with a steering rack without making it obvious.”
That was enough for prosecutors to file an additional charge.
Murder.
When I heard, I sat down on the courthouse steps.
Natalie sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke for a long time.
Finally, I said, “We could have been her.”
Natalie nodded.
“I think about that every day.”
The financial trial continued while the murder case moved separately.
Two weeks later, the jury began deliberating.
Four hours passed.
Then six.
By seven that evening, we were called back.
I sat behind the prosecutor.
Natalie on my left.
Megan on my right.
Ryan stood at the defense table.
The jury foreman rose.
“On the charge of bank fraud…”
Guilty.
“Identity theft…”
Guilty.
“Forgery…”
Guilty.
“Conspiracy to commit insurance fraud…”
Guilty.
“Solicitation to commit aggravated assault…”
Guilty.
Count after count.
Guilty.
Ryan didn’t react.
Not until the last verdict.
Then his shoulders dropped.
For five years, I had seen him perform every emotion a person could perform.
Love.
Fear.
Grief.
Tenderness.
Regret.
That was the first time I saw something real.
Defeat.
The judge ordered him held pending sentencing.
As officers cuffed him, Ryan turned toward me.
“You ruined my life.”
The words almost made me laugh.
I stood.
“No.”
The courtroom went quiet.
“You finally ran out of women to blame.”
The officers took him away.
I thought that would feel like the ending.
It didn’t.
Because the next morning, Monica called.
“Claire, we found the rest of the money.”
I sat up.
“How much?”
“Enough to change everything.”
“Where?”
May you like
She paused.
“In an account under your name.”
