Chapter 13 - MY BEST FRIEND
I refused to believe it.
Not Rachel.
She had held my hair while I threw up after my first breakup.
She knew my coffee order.
She had slept beside me after my grandmother died.
She had stood behind me in the church.
But the video was clear.
Rachel opened a service door.
Peter walked through.
She handed him a jacket.
Then they disappeared.
I called her.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
My mother whispered, “Sarah…”
“Don’t.”
I drove back to Rachel’s apartment with Ethan and two detectives.
The door was unlocked.
Her baseball bat lay on the floor.
My wedding dress was gone.
So was my laptop.
On the kitchen table sat a note.
I’M SORRY.
I stared at it.
One detective found a burner phone.
Another found cash beneath the sink.
Ethan opened a drawer.
Inside were photographs of me.
Hundreds.
Some taken through windows.
Some at work.
Some with Ethan.
Some years old.
I sat down.
“What is this?”
Thomas arrived ten minutes later.
He looked at one photograph.
Then closed his eyes.
“Rachel is Peter’s daughter.”
I laughed because my brain had run out of reasonable responses.
“My maid of honor is my cousin too?”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone in Chicago share DNA?”
Nobody answered.
Thomas explained that Peter had a daughter after disappearing from the family for several years.
He had raised her under her mother’s surname.
Rachel had befriended me in college.
Not by accident.
“Why?”
“To watch you.”
My throat tightened.
“For fifteen years?”
“Peter was afraid your grandfather had left you evidence.”
I looked around Rachel’s apartment.
Every memory suddenly felt contaminated.
Then my phone buzzed.
A photo message.
Rachel wearing my wedding dress.
Standing inside the abandoned church.
Beside her was Peter.
The caption read:
May you like
BRING THE ORIGINAL TAPE.
COME ALONE OR YOUR MOTHER DIES.
