Chapter 2 - THE DEAD GIRL WHO HAD BEEN SITTING BETWEEN THEM ALL ALONG
Seven months earlier, Grace Bennett had stood in the rain beside an empty grave.
There had been no body inside the coffin.
Only photographs.
Letters.
A silver necklace Beatrice had worn since high school.
And a pair of muddy hiking boots Frank insisted she would have wanted buried with her.
Beatrice Bennett’s car had been discovered at the bottom of a steep embankment beside Route 17 after three days of searching.
The driver’s side had been crushed.
Blood was found inside.
One door had been torn open during the crash.
The river beneath the ravine was swollen from two days of storms.
Search teams looked for nearly a week.
They found Beatrice’s jacket four miles downstream.
They never found Beatrice.
Authorities concluded that she had been thrown from the vehicle and carried away by the water.
For Frank, that was enough to bury his daughter.
For Grace, it never felt like enough.
Beatrice had grown up almost as much in Grace’s house as in Frank’s.
Frank’s wife, Amelia, died from ovarian cancer when Beatrice was ten.
Afterward, Frank worked long shifts at an auto repair shop and tried to raise a grieving child by himself.
Grace filled the spaces she could.
Beatrice spent weekends sleeping on a mattress beside Caleb’s bed when they were children.
Caleb taught her to ride a bicycle.
Beatrice taught Caleb how to lie to Grace about who had broken the kitchen window.
They fought over the television.
They stole each other’s snacks.
When Beatrice was bullied in middle school, Caleb walked two miles to confront the boy responsible.
When Caleb left for college, Beatrice cried in the driveway but refused to hug him until the final second.
She called him “the brother nobody asked me if I wanted.”
He called her “the sister nobody could return.”
Grace had never doubted that Caleb loved her.
That was what made his grief after Beatrice’s death so frightening.
He stopped sleeping.
Stopped attending family dinners.
Lost fifteen pounds.
For weeks he drove the road where Beatrice’s car had crashed, looking for something the police might have missed.
Katherine had been with him through all of it.
At least, that was what Grace believed.
Katherine attended the memorial.
She brought food to Frank.
She sat beside Grace through hours of silence.
She held Caleb when he cried in the backyard because Beatrice’s twenty-fourth birthday arrived and there was no one to call.
Grace remembered thinking Katherine was a blessing.
Now, standing inside the ruined bridal bedroom, she wondered what Katherine had known during every one of those moments.
Downstairs, Katherine sat at the kitchen table wrapped in one of Grace’s cardigans.
Her wedding dress had been replaced with gray sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt Katherine kept in her overnight bag.
The transformation was almost painful to look at.
Two hours earlier she had been a bride.
Now she looked like someone recovering from a disaster.
Robert placed a mug of tea in front of her.
She didn’t touch it.
Frank remained standing near the refrigerator.
Grace entered last.
Caleb had been told to stay upstairs.
Robert had taken his car keys.
The decision caused an argument, but Grace did not care.
No one was leaving until Katherine was safely somewhere she chose to be.
Grace sat opposite her.
“My dear.”
Katherine lifted her eyes.
“I need to ask you something.”
“I know.”
“Did you know Beatrice before you met Caleb?”
Katherine closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Frank made a sound in the back of his throat.
Robert turned toward him.
Grace kept her attention on Katherine.
“How?”
Katherine’s fingers tightened around the sleeves of Grace’s cardigan.
“Through work.”
“What does that mean?”
“She contacted the housing alliance.”
“When?”
“Almost two years ago.”
Grace’s mouth went dry.
That was before Caleb and Katherine had started dating seriously.
“Why did she contact you?”
Katherine looked at Frank.
Then Robert.
Then Grace.
“I can’t explain everything without telling you things Beatrice made me promise not to tell.”
Frank slammed his palm against the counter.
“My daughter is dead!”
Katherine flinched.
Grace stood instantly.
“Frank.”
“She doesn’t get to hide behind promises now!”
“Lower your voice.”
“She sat at Beatrice’s funeral knowing—”
“We don’t know what she knew.”
Frank stared at his sister-in-law.
“I know enough.”
Grace heard something underneath the statement.
Certainty.
Too much certainty.
She turned toward him.
“What exactly do you know?”
Frank’s anger disappeared for half a second.
“Caleb told me.”
“When?”
“This afternoon.”
Grace froze.
Before the wedding.
Frank looked away.
Robert’s voice became dangerously quiet.
“You knew before the ceremony?”
“I knew Caleb had questions.”
“And you said nothing?”
“It wasn’t my place.”
Grace could barely believe him.
“You watched them get married.”
Frank’s jaw tightened.
“Maybe Katherine should answer first.”
Katherine began crying silently.
Grace sat down again.
“Tell us what you can.”
Katherine stared at the untouched tea.
“Beatrice discovered problems at one of Harland Mercer Construction’s projects.”
Robert frowned.
“Caleb’s company?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Serious ones.”
Katherine swallowed.
“The project was called Mason Ridge.”
Robert knew the name immediately.
Everyone in the county did.
Mason Ridge was a large affordable-housing development outside Richmond.
The project had been praised by politicians.
It promised more than four hundred apartments for families who had been priced out of the city.
Harland Mercer Construction had won the main contract.
Caleb had worked on part of the structural design.
Grace slowly understood why Katherine looked so frightened.
“What did Beatrice find?”
“She had taken a temporary administrative job with one of the subcontractors.”
Frank frowned.
“She told me she was doing office work.”
“She was.”
Katherine nodded.
“At first.”
“Then?”
“She noticed invoices that didn’t match delivery records.”
Robert leaned forward.
“What does that mean?”
“Materials were being changed.”
“Changed how?”
“Lower-grade steel.”
Cheaper concrete additives.
Inspection reports copied from other sites.
Katherine continued carefully.
“Beatrice wasn’t an engineer, but she knew enough to recognize that something was wrong.”
“How?”
“Because Caleb talked about his work constantly when they were younger.”
Grace almost smiled despite herself.
Of course.
Beatrice used to complain that Caleb could turn dinner into a lecture about load distribution.
“She started taking photographs.”
Frank closed his eyes.
“She should have come to me.”
Katherine looked at him.
“She said she was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what would happen to you if you knew.”
Frank stared at her.
That response seemed to affect him more than anything else.
Katherine continued.
“She contacted our office anonymously.”
“My supervisor forwarded the complaint to me because I handled documentation.”
“She wouldn’t give me her real name at first.”
“Eventually she did.”
“Did you know she was Caleb’s cousin?”
“No.”
Katherine wiped her face.
“Not until later.”
“How much later?”
“After Caleb and I had already met.”
Grace’s heart tightened.
“You recognized the last name?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told him?”
“No.”
Caleb’s voice came from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs.
Grace rose.
“I told you to stay upstairs.”
“I heard enough.”
Katherine immediately stiffened.
Robert stepped between them.
Caleb didn’t approach.
He looked at Katherine.
“You knew.”
“I was protecting confidential information.”
“You watched me bury her.”
“There was no body.”
“You watched me believe she was dead.”
Katherine’s voice cracked.
“I believed she was dead too.”
“And you never told me she had been afraid before the accident?”
“She begged me not to involve you.”
“Why?”
Katherine hesitated.
Caleb laughed bitterly.
“Because she knew I worked for Mercer?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because she was trying to protect you.”
Caleb stopped.
Katherine finally looked directly at him.
“Beatrice thought your name was in the documents.”
The room became silent.
“What documents?”
“Engineering approvals.”
Caleb’s expression changed.
Not anger.
Confusion.
“What are you talking about?”
“She found your digital signature on several revised material specifications.”
“That’s impossible.”
Katherine’s voice softened.
“She didn’t think you knew.”
Caleb shook his head.
“No.”
“She believed someone was using your approval credentials.”
“No.”
“She told me you were too careful.”
Caleb took a step backward.
“She said if the company realized she was investigating, they might make it look like you were part of it.”
“No.”
Grace watched her son’s confidence fracture.
Katherine stood.
“This is why she didn’t want you involved.”
Caleb stared at her.
“Then why did she die?”
Katherine looked down.
“That is the part I don’t know.”
“You were the last person she called.”
“She called me because she was scared.”
“What did she say?”
Katherine’s face drained of color.
“She said someone was following her.”
Frank gripped the edge of the counter.
Robert swore under his breath.
Caleb moved closer.
“What else?”
“She said she had made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“She had trusted someone.”
“Who?”
Katherine looked toward Frank.
For one second, Grace thought she imagined it.
Then Frank’s shoulders stiffened.
Katherine whispered,
“She never told me the name.”
Frank exhaled.
Too quickly.
Grace saw it.
So did Robert.
Caleb did not.
He was looking only at Katherine.
“You could have told police.”
“I did.”
“What?”
“I told the detective everything I legally could.”
“They said her accident was weather related.”
“I know.”
“Then you failed her.”
Katherine’s face hardened for the first time that night.
“No.”
Caleb looked stunned.
“I tried to help her.”
“You hid the truth.”
“I kept a promise to a frightened young woman who believed your company was watching her.”
“She was my family.”
“And she was my client.”
Katherine took a breath.
“And perhaps if you had asked me calmly instead of turning our wedding night into an interrogation, you would have learned that.”
Caleb flinched.
Grace said nothing.
Katherine picked up her purse.
“I’m leaving.”
Grace stood.
“I’ll drive you.”
“No.”
Katherine looked at her.
“Please stay with your family.”
Grace shook her head.
“You are my family too.”
Caleb looked away.
That sentence seemed to wound him.
Katherine’s younger sister, Hannah, arrived twenty minutes later.
She came through the front door still wearing the pale green bridesmaid dress from the ceremony.
Her hair was half down.
One false eyelash was missing.
She took one look at Katherine and became furious.
“What happened?”
Katherine hugged her.
“Take me home.”
Hannah stared past her toward Caleb.
“What did he do?”
“Not here.”
Hannah’s jaw clenched.
Grace walked Katherine outside.
The garden remained beautiful.
That somehow made it worse.
Empty chairs stood beneath glowing lights.
A discarded champagne glass sat beside the dance floor.
A white ribbon moved gently in the wind.
Katherine stopped beside Hannah’s car.
“Grace.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
Grace stared at her.
“For what?”
“For not telling you about Beatrice.”
Grace stepped closer.
“I wish you had.”
Katherine nodded.
“But wishing you had told me is not the same as believing you deserved what happened tonight.”
Tears filled Katherine’s eyes.
Grace hugged her.
At first Katherine remained stiff.
Then she broke.
“I really loved him.”
Grace held her tighter.
“I know.”
“I thought he loved me.”
Grace looked over Katherine’s shoulder toward the house.
Caleb stood behind a dark window.
“He may have.”
Katherine pulled back.
Grace finished quietly.
“But love that chooses fear over truth becomes something else.”
Katherine got into the car.
Hannah drove away.
Grace remained by the road until the taillights disappeared.
When she returned inside, Robert was in the living room.
Caleb sat across from him.
Frank was gone.
Grace looked toward the empty guest room.
“Where did Frank go?”
Robert frowned.
“He said he needed air.”
Grace checked the driveway.
Frank’s truck was gone.
Her suspicion returned.
She walked upstairs and entered the damaged bridal room.
The old photograph of Beatrice remained beside the speaker.
Grace picked it up.
Something was written on the back.
In Beatrice’s handwriting.
She recognized it immediately.
Three words.
Ask Dad first.
Grace stared at them.
Her pulse slowed.
The photograph had not belonged to Caleb.
It had belonged to Beatrice.
And suddenly Grace knew exactly where she needed to start looking.
May you like
Not at Katherine.
At Frank.
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