Chapter 4 - THE WINTER COAT
I knelt on the carpet of the Grand Wellington lobby, staring at the blood-stained silver bracelet in my palm.
“Mom?” Lily whispered, kneeling beside me. “Whose is that?”
“It’s Evelyn’s,” I said, my voice barely functioning. I remembered her wearing it twenty years ago. The heavy charms used to clink together whenever she handed Robert a check.
Footsteps pounded against the marble floor behind us.
Robert rounded the corner, breathing heavily. He had bypassed Vanessa and the crowd, his tuxedo jacket now unbuttoned and crooked.
He saw the bracelet in my hand and stopped dead.
“You lied to me,” I said, standing up and pulling Lily behind me. “Evelyn didn’t run away to Europe. She didn't abandon Vanessa. Something happened to her in our garage.”
Robert looked around frantically. The lobby was mostly empty; everyone was still in the ballroom, buzzing about the drama on stage.
“It was an accident,” Robert pleaded, taking a cautious step forward. “Caroline, you have to believe me. We were arguing about her investment. She slipped on a patch of oil. She hit her head on the engine hoist.”
A reversal hit me like a physical blow. I had just convinced myself my husband was a thief, but a murderer?
“You let her die?” I choked out. “You let her die and then you stole her money to build this empire? And then you slept with her daughter?!”
“I didn’t let her die!” Robert hissed, his eyes wild. “I tried to call an ambulance! But someone stopped me!”
I stared at him, disgusted. “Who could possibly stop you?”
Robert looked down at the houndstooth coat on the chair, then up at me.
“Your mother,” he whispered.
“Don't you dare,” I snarled, stepping forward. “Do not try to blame my mother for this.”
“Think about it, Caroline!” Robert said, his voice cracking. “Who forced me to sign over the company? Who held that debt over my head for two decades? Dorothy walked into the garage that night. She saw Evelyn on the floor. She saw the blood on the bracelet.”
Robert reached into his tuxedo pocket.
“She told me if I called the police, they’d take me away. You and Lily would have nothing. She said she’d handle it, as long as I signed the company over to her.”
“You’re a liar,” I said, tears finally spilling over my cheeks. “My mother was a cafeteria worker. She baked cookies. She didn’t cover up a death!”
“Then why did I find this shoved beneath the Thunderbird’s passenger seat the next morning?” Robert asked.
He held out his hand.
Dangling from his fingers was a wooden Catholic rosary.
It was worn smooth from years of prayer. One of the beads was chipped.
I knew that chip. I had caused it when I was seven years old. It was my mother’s rosary. The one she carried every single day of her life until the week Evelyn vanished.
I stumbled back, feeling the world spin. My sweet, loving mother had helped dispose of a woman’s body?
“No,” Lily said firmly.
We both looked at my daughter.
Lily stepped out from behind me, her jaw set exactly the way my mother’s used to be.
“Grandma didn’t lose her rosary, Dad,” Lily said, glaring at him. “She didn’t leave it in the car by accident.”
“Lily, stay out of this,” Robert warned.
“She gave it to someone,” Lily continued, ignoring him. She looked toward the archway leading to the ballroom. “She gave it to the man who helped her that night.”
From the shadows of the archway, an older man in a rented suit stepped forward.
May you like
It was Arthur, our original head mechanic.
“The girl is right, Caroline,” Arthur said softly, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Your mother didn’t cover up a murder. Because Evelyn didn’t die in that garage.”
