Chapter 14 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE SHAME
David answered on speaker.
“Caroline.”
His niece sounded cheerful.
“Uncle David, are you still at the wedding?”
Nobody answered.
Her tone changed.
“What’s wrong?”
David looked toward Detective Santos.
She nodded.
“Caroline,” he said, “why were you sending messages to Lauren?”
Silence.
Then:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The account traces back to the Cole Foundation.”
Another silence.
Evelyn stepped forward.
“You used my access?”
Caroline laughed quietly.
That laugh told us everything.
“You people really don’t understand what you did.”
Richard frowned.
“What did we do?”
“My father lost everything because of Halcyon.”
David closed his eyes.
Caroline continued.
“When the scandal started, you protected yourselves. Uncle David kept his money. The Coles rebuilt their reputation. My father took the blame for forged documentation he didn’t even create.”
David whispered:
“Your father participated.”
“He was twenty-six!”
“So was Michael.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Lauren stepped toward the phone.
“What does any of that have to do with my mother?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why humiliate her?”
“I wasn’t humiliating her.”
Lauren’s voice sharpened.
“You photographed her without permission and used her life to make me ashamed.”
“I showed you what the Coles would eventually think.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“That is not true.”
Caroline laughed.
“You’re telling me Margaret Miller would have been welcomed into your country club?”
Evelyn said nothing.
That silence hurt.
But then Evelyn did something unexpected.
She turned toward me.
“No.”
Everyone stared.
She continued.
“Five years ago, I probably would have judged her.”
Lauren’s eyes hardened.
“But today I watched the woman my daughter-in-law tried to hide turn out to be braver, more honest, and more important to this family’s history than most of us.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“And I am ashamed of myself for ever thinking wealth made us superior.”
The room became quiet.
Caroline’s voice came through the phone.
“You’re all pretending now.”
Detective Santos stepped closer.
“Caroline, where are you?”
The line disconnected.
David cursed softly.
Santos immediately called another officer.
Then she looked toward us.
“We’ll locate her. The harassment is one issue. The old financial records are another.”
“What about Thomas?” I asked.
She looked at me carefully.
“The preliminary test on the vial just came back.”
Lauren grabbed my hand.
Santos continued.
“The substance in the vial was a sedative compound available at the time.”
“Could three drops kill him?”
“Very unlikely.”
I closed my eyes.
“So Michael didn’t kill Thomas.”
“Based on what we currently know, not directly.”
Lauren whispered:
“Then how did Dad die?”
The detective held up Thomas’s original medical report.
“I requested the archived laboratory notes.”
She turned one page toward us.
“There was something the coroner noticed but considered insignificant.”
“What?”
“Thomas had extremely high levels of a stimulant in his bloodstream.”
I frowned.
“He didn’t take stimulants.”
“I know.”
Santos pointed at the report.
“The combination of the sedative and stimulant could have triggered the fatal cardiac event.”
David stood.
“Where did the stimulant come from?”
Detective Santos looked toward Thomas’s old cassette tape.
Then toward me.
“There is one more section on this recording.”
My heart stopped.
“We thought the tape ended.”
“It didn’t.”
She pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then Thomas’s voice returned.
Margaret, if my heart stops tomorrow, it wasn’t David.
A pause.
Then my husband named the person who had given him pills for the previous three weeks.
Dr. Charles Bennett.
Lauren gasped.
May you like
Because Dr. Bennett had been our family doctor.
And he was also the man who signed Thomas’s death certificate.
