Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN WHO SAW HIM DIE
Claire refused to sit near the windows.
That told me how afraid she was.
Daniel made coffee.
She didn’t touch it.
“I was eleven,” she began.
I frowned.
“You saw Samuel die when you were eleven?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He found me.”
Claire explained that Samuel had secretly reconnected with her adoptive parents.
He never told Marcus’s family.
He never told Margaret.
But one summer afternoon, he took Claire sailing.
He wanted to explain who he was.
A storm rolled in.
Samuel received a radio call.
Then another boat approached.
Margaret was on it.
Daniel went pale.
“My mother?”
Claire nodded.
“They argued.”
“About what?”
“You.”
Daniel looked away.
Claire remembered only pieces.
Samuel shouting that he would tell Richard everything.
Margaret screaming that he would destroy her son.
Then Samuel boarded Margaret’s boat.
Claire stayed behind.
The boats separated.
Twenty minutes later, Samuel was in the water.
Margaret’s boat was gone.
“Did you see her push him?” I asked.
“No.”
“Then you don’t know she killed him.”
“No.”
Claire’s eyes hardened.
“But I know she left him.”
That was enough to silence the room.
Samuel had still been alive.
Claire heard him yelling.
She tried to start the boat.
She couldn’t.
By the time another vessel arrived, Samuel was unconscious.
He died before reaching shore.
“Why didn’t you tell police?”
“I did.”
Daniel looked stunned.
“What?”
“My adoptive father made the report.”
“What happened?”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“Margaret’s attorney said I was a disturbed child inventing stories.”
I thought of Lily.
Same tactic.
Discredit the child.
Protect the name.
Different decade.
Same Margaret.
Claire opened her bag.
“I kept this.”
A cassette tape.
Daniel stared.
“What is it?”
“Samuel recorded business notes.”
“Does it contain the argument?”
“The beginning.”
Claire had converted it digitally years ago.
She played it from her phone.
Wind.
Water.
Samuel’s voice.
Then Margaret.
“You will not tell Richard.”
“I’m done lying for you.”
“Daniel will lose everything.”
“He’ll lose a name. Not a father.”
Richard.
Samuel knew Richard loved Daniel.
Margaret didn’t care.
Her voice sharpened on the recording.
“If you open your mouth, I swear you’ll regret it.”
The tape ended.
Daniel stared at nothing.
Claire said, “There’s more.”
She pulled out copies of bank records.
Margaret had paid a marina employee two days after Samuel’s death.
The same employee later testified that Samuel’s boat had been found empty.
Daniel whispered, “She bought his silence.”
“Maybe.”
Claire wasn’t pretending the records proved murder.
But they proved something had been hidden.
My phone rang.
Detective Harris.
I answered.
His voice was urgent.
“Emma, is Daniel with you?”
“Yes.”
“Is Claire Harlan there?”
Claire’s eyes widened.
“Yes.”
“Lock your doors.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“Colin escaped during transport.”
Daniel stood.
“How?”
Harris ignored the question.
“We believe he’s heading toward someone connected to the Harlan evidence.”
A crash came from my backyard.
The kitchen lights went out.
Lily woke upstairs.
“Mommy?”
I ran for the stairs.
Daniel grabbed a fireplace poker.
Claire whispered,
“He’s here.”
Then a man’s voice came through the dark kitchen.
“No.”
Colin stepped into the doorway.
May you like
A knife glinted in his hand.
“I came for the tape.”
