Chapter 6 - The Boathouse.
Rebecca's words pulled every face toward her.
She looked terrified by the attention, but she kept speaking.
"Dad wasn't found under the terrace."
Margaret crossed the room in two fast steps.
"You were in shock."
Rebecca flinched.
Claire saw the old machinery of the family working again.
Correct the memory.
Control the witness.
Call emotion confusion.
Rebecca straightened.
"I was twenty-eight, Mom."
Her voice shook.
"I knew what I saw."
Detective Cole asked her to continue.
Rebecca said she had driven to the lake house after Margaret called shortly after midnight.
Margaret told her Richard had fallen outside and an ambulance was coming.
When Rebecca arrived, red and blue lights were already sweeping across the snow.
A deputy stopped her near the driveway.
From there, she could see Richard's body beneath a silver emergency blanket near the boathouse path.
"Not the terrace," Rebecca repeated.
Margaret's mouth tightened.
"They moved him."
Cole looked at her.
"Who moved him?"
Margaret hesitated.
"The paramedics."
"From where?"
"I don't remember."
Rebecca laughed through her tears.
"You remember everything."
Ortiz asked whether Rebecca had ever told police what she saw.
Rebecca nodded.
"A detective interviewed me the next morning."
"What did you say?"
"That Dad was near the boathouse when I arrived."
Cole frowned.
"That statement isn't in the archived report."
Margaret's composure finally cracked.
"This is becoming grotesque."
Claire watched her and realized the older woman was no longer worried about the foundation.
She was worried about the death.
The distinction mattered.
Cole asked Rebecca the name of the detective who interviewed her.
She could not remember.
Daniel suddenly spoke from the fireplace.
"It was Harlan."
Everyone looked at him.
He rubbed both hands over his face.
"Detective Samuel Harlan."
Cole recognized the name.
Harlan had retired four years earlier.
Daniel continued before anyone asked why he remembered.
"He interviewed me too."
"And what did you tell him?" Cole asked.
Daniel stared into the dying fire.
"That I was home with Claire."
Claire felt cold spread through her chest.
She had never spoken to police after Richard's death.
No detective had ever asked her to confirm an alibi.
"You used me as your alibi without telling me?"
Daniel looked at her.
"I told them we were together."
"We weren't."
"I knew you wouldn't contradict me."
The arrogance of it was almost breathtaking.
He had not asked for her protection.
He had simply spent it like money he already owned.
Claire stepped closer.
"That is why you needed the box hidden."
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
"The letter proved you were there."
He looked toward his mother.
Margaret's silence answered for him.
Ortiz opened the red cookie tin and removed one of Claire's USB drives.
"Mrs. Bennett, what is on these?"
"Scans of financial pages I found before the box was moved."
"Anything related to Richard Bennett's death?"
Claire started to say no.
Then she remembered an image she had never understood.
A photograph of a page covered in Richard's handwriting.
Daniel had walked in while she was scanning it, and she had closed the laptop before reading the whole thing.
She had assumed it was a donor note.
"Maybe."
Daniel moved away from the fireplace.
"Claire."
His tone was different now.
Not mocking.
Begging.
"Don't."
Claire looked at Ortiz.
"There is a folder called December."
Ortiz connected the drive to an evidence laptop.
The room waited.
The folder contained thirteen images.
Bank statements.
Transfer authorizations.
A photograph of Richard's handwritten note.
Ortiz enlarged the final paragraph.
Claire read the first line and felt her knees weaken.
Richard had written Daniel's name.
Then Margaret's.
The next line was cut off by the edge of the photograph.
May you like
But the final visible sentence was complete.
If anything happens to me, neither of them should be believed.
