Chapter 13
The final recording was the darkest.
Relle had not heard it herself.
The old phone continued recording inside compartment H-17 after she was taken.
Hours later, Caleb returned to the cellar with Vanessa.
Vanessa was crying.
“I don’t want this anymore.”
Caleb answered:
“You wanted Julian.”
“I wanted him. Not this.”
“You don’t get to separate love from power after entering this family.”
Then Vanessa asked:
“What happens after the wedding?”
A pause.
Caleb’s answer:
“If Julian behaves, nothing.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Longer silence.
“He becomes another Hale men remember fondly.”
My father had been dead five years.
Natural illness.
At least I had always believed it was natural.
I stopped the audio.
Every man at the table went still.
I did not leap toward Caleb.
Did not accuse him of killing my father without evidence.
That would give him an escape.
I asked one question.
“What did you mean?”
He smiled.
“Metaphor.”
Of course.
I nodded.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
That question could wait.
The current betrayal did not need an older murder to become serious enough.
That mattered.
Too many people chase a bigger crime because they think the visible one is not sufficient.
Relle’s fourteen months were sufficient.
Amara’s grief was sufficient.
My engagement being engineered was sufficient.
Vanessa helping hide a woman was sufficient.
I did not need to turn every old death into Caleb’s masterpiece.
I looked at the captains.
“What happened to my father remains what we know unless truth says otherwise.”
Then at Caleb.
“But what you did to Relle is already enough.”
His smile disappeared.
May you like
Good.
He had been hoping mystery would distract us from certainty.
