Chapter 7
I called Claudia from the storage room.
She answered on the second ring.
“Where are you?”
“Box 27.”
Silence.
Then breathing.
Nothing else.
I almost smiled.
“Sarah found it before me.”
She did not answer.
“She wrote your name.”
Still nothing.
I continued.
“She knew about Thomas.”
Claudia finally spoke.
“You don’t know what Sarah was doing.”
“No.”
“Then stop assuming she was innocent.”
Mark stepped closer to the phone.
“What does that mean?”
Claudia’s voice changed when she heard him.
“She lied to you too.”
Mark flinched.
“About what?”
“She was going to leave.”
“No.”
“She had bags packed.”
I looked at Ellen’s storage shelves.
Bags.
Again.
Adults always used packed belongings as evidence of abandonment.
Sometimes they were evidence of escape.
“Why was Sarah leaving?” I asked.
Claudia stayed silent.
Mark shouted into the phone.
“Why?”
Then Claudia said:
“Because she knew who killed Ellen.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Mark looked at me.
I could barely hear him breathe.
“My wife wasn’t sick?”
Claudia immediately corrected herself.
“I didn’t say killed like murder.”
“Then what did you say?”
“She found out something about Ellen’s medication.”
My vision narrowed.
Ellen had died after months of worsening health.
Fatigue.
Dizziness.
Heart problems.
Doctors never found one clear cause.
Thomas handled most of her prescriptions because I was traveling constantly through that period.
My brother.
Again.
I spoke slowly.
“What did Sarah find?”
Claudia’s voice shook now.
“An old bottle.”
“What bottle?”
“She tested it.”
I closed my eyes.
Mark sat down.
“What was in it?”
Claudia whispered:
“Something that wasn’t supposed to be.”
The storage room went silent.
Then she added:
“Sarah thought Thomas had been making Ellen sick.”
I looked at the tapes.
The journals.
The counterfeit rings.
The woman I buried twelve years ago.
Then I asked the only question left.
“If Thomas was dead when Sarah found this, why did Sarah die?”
Claudia started crying.
May you like
And Mark whispered:
“Because someone was still protecting him.”
