Chapter 8 - Another Fake Confession
Mark survived.
The note did not.
Forensic analysis proved it had been printed from Miriam's office.
Mark woke two days later.
He asked for a lawyer.
Then he asked whether Elaine had been arrested.
She had not.
Not yet.
He laughed bitterly.
"Then she's already planning my funeral."
Mark agreed to talk.
Elaine hired him to tamper with my brakes.
She told him I abused Evan.
She said Evan was trapped.
She said I had killed Daniel.
Mark wanted money.
He also wanted Elaine.
They had been having an affair for four years.
Long before Daniel died.
"Did you kill Daniel?"
Maria asked.
Mark stared at the wall.
"I helped."
My chest tightened.
Elaine wanted Daniel sick.
Not dead, according to Mark.
She told him Daniel was changing the will.
Mark modified the truck exhaust so fumes could enter the cabin.
The plan was to make Daniel confused and frighten him into delaying legal changes.
Instead, Daniel drove farther than expected.
He died.
"What did Elaine do?"
"She cried."
Mark laughed without humor.
"Then she told me we'd already crossed the line."
After Daniel's death, Elaine and Miriam altered estate papers.
They could not eliminate my life interest completely without attracting scrutiny.
So they built a different plan.
Make me look guilty.
Turn Evan against me.
Then wait.
When I refused to sell the cabin, Elaine escalated.
Mark cut the brakes.
Evan was supposed to survive.
I was not.
The suicide note would connect my death to Daniel's.
Elaine would become the grieving aunt.
Evan would become the traumatized heir.
And no one would look at the old deed.
Maria finally had enough.
Warrants were signed.
Police reached Elaine's house at 4:20 a.m.
The doors were open.
The safe was empty.
Elaine was gone.
On Evan's bed sat one photograph.
Rebecca holding him as a baby.
Across the front, Elaine had written.
SHE WOULD HAVE HATED WHAT YOU BECAME.
Evan stared at it.
Then turned away.
"No."
He looked at me.
May you like
"She would've hated what Elaine made me believe."
