CHAPTER 10 — THE FIRST VICTIM
Diane sat at my walnut dining table, gripping a cup of tea she never drank.
For years, she had treated me with polished superiority.
That evening, she looked ten years older.
“When Harper was twenty-six,” she began, “she became engaged to a man named Michael.”
Alex glanced at me.
Harper had never mentioned him.
“He owned a small construction company,” Diane continued. “She convinced him to invest in a wellness studio she planned to open. The business never existed.”
“How much?” Alex asked.
“Sixty thousand dollars.”
“What happened?”
“He discovered she had used the money to pay debts. She told everyone he was abusive. We believed her.”
“Was he?”
Diane stared into her tea.
“I don’t know anymore.”
The room felt colder.
“She met another man two years later,” Diane said. “He gave her access to a business account. Money disappeared. Again, she said he was controlling and unstable.”
Alex leaned back in his chair.
“And you never told me?”
“She promised she had changed.”
“No,” he said. “She found someone easier to manage.”
I felt the words strike him as soon as he said them.
Diane’s eyes filled.
“I helped her.”
“How?”
“I paid off debts. I called employers. I convinced people not to press charges.”
Alex looked at me.
The resemblance between Diane and me was suddenly impossible to ignore.
Two mothers.
Two children protected from consequences.
Two families nearly destroyed by the shelter we called love.
Diane turned toward me.
“I thought you were cold.”
“I thought you were arrogant.”
“I was.”
“So was I.”
She almost smiled.
Then her face crumpled.
“I found these in Harper’s closet.”
She opened one suitcase.
Inside were designer handbags, watches, jewelry boxes, and unopened electronics.
Some items still carried price tags.
The second suitcase contained envelopes.
Cash.
Gift cards.
Credit cards in other people’s names.
Alex stood so quickly his chair scraped across the floor.
“Jesus.”
Diane pulled out a velvet box.
Inside was the diamond bracelet I believed had been lost during a family reunion two years earlier.
“My bracelet,” I whispered.
Diane nodded.
“There’s more.”
She handed Alex a phone.
“Harper left this at my house last month. She said it was old.”
Alex turned it on.
No password.
The photo gallery held hundreds of screenshots—bank balances, signatures, account numbers, identity documents.
Not only mine.
Aunt Linda’s.
Cousin Marlene’s.
Even Sophie’s Social Security information.
Alex’s face turned gray.
“She used our daughter’s identity?”
“We don’t know yet,” Diane said.
He grabbed his phone and called the detective.
I walked to the window.
Outside, snow had begun falling in slow, clean sheets.
Christmas lights glowed across the street.
For years, I had believed family tradition could protect us from loss.
But tradition had also taught us to keep smiling when something was wrong.
To pass the food.
To avoid the argument.
To preserve the picture.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Mrs. Lawson?” a man asked.
“Yes.”
“This is Michael Carter.”
I looked at Diane.
Her face tightened.
Harper’s former fiancé continued.
“I heard she was arrested.”
“She hasn’t been arrested yet.”
“She will be.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I kept the one thing she thought I destroyed.”
“What?”
“A recording of her admitting everything.”
May you like
Before I could respond, glass shattered somewhere behind me.
Then the dining room lights went out.
