Chapter 7 - SOPHIE KNEW HER
The bank footage made no sense.
Sophie had changed into clean clothes. Claire knelt beside her near the elevators and fixed her hair with a tenderness that made my chest ache.
Then Sophie hugged her.
“How does my daughter know that woman?” I asked.
My mother wouldn’t meet my eyes.
I turned on her.
“What else are you hiding?”
“She met Claire once,” Evelyn admitted.
“When?”
“After Emily died.”
My vision narrowed.
“You let a supposedly dead woman meet my child?”
“Claire contacted me. She said Darren had been watching you. She wanted to help.”
“Why didn’t she come to me?”
“Because she believed someone close to you was working for him.”
I looked at Amanda.
Amanda shook her head.
“I didn’t meet Darren until last year.”
“Then who?”
My mother’s answer came out as a whisper.
“She thought it was Rachel.”
My sister had stayed at the venue with the guests—or so I believed.
I called her.
No answer.
Ortiz contacted the officer assigned to Rachel.
He had lost sight of her during the evacuation.
A photograph arrived on the second phone.
Rachel stood inside a parking structure with Darren behind her. His arm was wrapped around her throat.
Sophie and Claire were nowhere in sight.
A message followed:
Your sister tried to be brave. Bring the evidence to Pier 14. Come alone.
Claire had the evidence, not me.
Ortiz began organizing surveillance around the pier.
Then Rachel called from her own phone.
I answered immediately.
“Rachel?”
“I don’t have long,” she whispered. “Don’t trust the message.”
“Where are you?”
“In his car. Trunk.”
A muffled bang sounded.
“Darren doesn’t have Sophie anymore. Claire took her to protect her.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. But Amanda wasn’t the bride he originally chose.”
I looked at Amanda.
Rachel continued.
“He approached someone else first. Someone who could get closer to you without raising suspicion.”
“Who?”
The line crackled.
Then Rachel said the last name I expected.
“Mom.”
The call ended.
Evelyn backed away from me.
“That isn’t true.”
The second phone vibrated again.
A photograph appeared from four years earlier.
My mother sat across from Darren at a restaurant, signing a contract.
Behind the photograph was a scanned agreement.
It promised Darren control of my family’s assets.
And at the bottom, beneath my mother’s signature, was a second condition:
In the event Ethan Cole refuses cooperation, custody of Sophie Cole will be transferred to Evelyn Cole.
May you like
My mother hadn’t merely known about Darren’s plan.
She was supposed to replace me.
