Chapter 5
Claire denied everything for four hours.
Then Daniel arrived with her purse.
Inside was my father’s gold signet ring.
The one he supposedly wanted buried with him.
The one missing from the empty casket.
Daniel told detectives Claire asked him to hide the purse in their car before going to the station.
He looked destroyed.
“I didn’t know,” he kept saying.
Maybe he did not.
Maybe he knew enough and chose not to ask.
There is a difference.
Detectives also found a small bottle of sedatives in the lining of Claire’s handbag.
Prescription issued to Daniel’s mother after surgery.
Reported missing two months earlier.
Claire claimed she carried it by accident.
No one believed her.
By midnight, she was arrested.
Attempted murder.
Financial exploitation.
Forgery.
Fraud.
Tampering with evidence.
Abuse of a vulnerable adult.
When Detective Greene told me, I felt nothing for three seconds.
Then I felt everything.
My sister had tried to kill our father.
My sister had stood beside his casket wearing black sunglasses.
My sister had slapped me because I loved him enough to ask for one last look.
I asked again to see Dad.
This time, they took me.
The secure medical facility was quiet.
Two officers stood near the hallway.
Dad’s room smelled like antiseptic and bitter tea.
He lay in bed with tubes in his arm, face pale, eyes closed.
Not dead.
Alive.
I stopped in the doorway.
For one second, I was six years old again, afraid to wake him from a nap.
Then his eyes opened.
“Livy.”
I broke.
I crossed the room and grabbed his hand.
“Dad.”
He smiled weakly.
“You opened it.”
I cried harder.
“You scared me.”
“I know.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I know.”
“That was a terrible plan.”
His smile faded.
“It was the only one that made her move.”
I wanted to argue.
Then I remembered Claire’s face when the casket opened.
He was right.
I hated that he was right.
He lifted his hand slightly.
I leaned closer.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what?”
“For needing proof before protecting you from her.”
My tears fell onto his blanket.
“You’re alive.”
“For now.”
“Don’t say that.”
He squeezed my fingers.
“Okay.”
Then he looked toward the door.
“Where is Claire?”
I swallowed.
“Arrested.”
His eyes closed.
A tear slid down his temple.
He loved her.
That was the cruelty of it.
May you like
He loved the daughter who tried to kill him.
And I loved the sister who had made me hate myself for doubting her.
