Chapter 7 - The Sister Who Kept Christmas Perfect
Daniel called Rebecca seventeen times.
No answer.
Marcus drove.
Snow thickened across the highway.
“Don’t decide she’s guilty before we get there,” Marcus said.
“She never told me Rachel called.”
“That is not murder.”
“No. It’s another lie.”
At the horse farm, the front door stood open.
Daniel ran inside.
“Rebecca!”
The Christmas tree lights were on.
A pan of cookies sat cooling.
No children.
Then Sophie appeared from behind the sofa.
“Daddy!”
Daniel dropped to his knees and caught her.
“Where’s Ben?”
“With Aunt Rebecca.”
“Where?”
“She said they were getting firewood.”
Marcus checked outside.
Tracks led toward the barn.
They found Rebecca sitting on a bale of hay, Ben asleep against her shoulder.
She was crying.
Daniel stopped.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping him away from the windows.”
“Why?”
“Someone called the house.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. They said, ‘You failed Rachel once. Don’t fail the boy.’”
Daniel stared at her.
“Rachel called you the night she died.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she made me promise.”
“Everyone keeps protecting me with lies.”
“She wasn’t protecting you.”
“Then who?”
“Me.”
Rebecca handed Ben to Marcus and stood.
“Six years ago I had gambling debt.”
Daniel stared.
“You?”
“I was ashamed. Warren found out. He paid it.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Information. Foundation schedules. Board meetings. Nothing that seemed dangerous at first.”
“You fed him information.”
“Yes.”
“Rachel discovered it.”
Rebecca nodded, crying.
“She called me from the road. She said she had proof Warren was using my access. She told me to confess before he used me for something worse.”
“What did you do?”
“I panicked.”
“Did you call Warren?”
“Yes.”
Daniel stepped back.
Rebecca covered her face.
“I told him Rachel knew.”
The barn became silent except for wind.
“You sent him after her.”
“I didn’t know he would chase her.”
“But he did.”
“Yes.”
Daniel wanted to scream.
Instead he looked at Ben.
His son slept through the confession.
“What happened after?”
“Warren called me at 10:50. He said Rachel had gone off the road. He told me if I spoke, police would learn I helped him steal from the foundation.”
“So you stayed quiet.”
“I was a coward.”
Daniel’s voice was flat. “And every Christmas you came to my house.”
Rebecca sobbed.
“I loved you.”
“You watched me grieve.”
“I know.”
“You held Sophie.”
“I know.”
“You let me marry Warren’s daughter without telling me any of this.”
Rebecca looked toward the house.
“Meredith was the reason you survived.”
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
“After Rachel died, Warren wanted access to you. Meredith married you partly to keep him away.”
“That is insane.”
“It started that way. Then she loved you.”
Daniel almost laughed from disbelief.
“Is that supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
Rebecca wiped her face.
“But you need the whole truth.”
She retrieved a metal cookie tin from behind a bale.
It was decorated with faded snowmen.
“Rachel gave me this the week before she died.”
Daniel opened it.
Inside were cassette tapes.
Old-fashioned microcassettes.
Rachel had recorded conversations.
One was labeled W.C.
Another C.H.
Another R.H.
Daniel stared.
“Who is R.H.?”
Rebecca whispered, “Ruth Hart.”
Daniel’s grandmother.
She had died ten years earlier.
Or so the family believed.
Marcus looked at Rebecca.
“Why would Rachel record a dead woman?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“She didn’t.”
Daniel felt the now-familiar sensation of the past opening beneath him.
That night they played the tape.
Rachel’s voice came first.
“You’ve been hiding behind Warren.”
An elderly woman answered.
“Warren enjoys being feared.”
Rachel: “And you enjoy being invisible.”
Woman: “It is safer.”
Rachel: “You stole from families.”
Woman: “I protected ours.”
Rachel: “By destroying theirs?”
A pause.
Then the elderly woman said:
“Christmas makes sentimental people careless, Rachel. You should have taken the money.”
The tape ended.
Daniel stared at the recorder.
His grandmother Ruth had supposedly died four years before Rachel recorded that conversation.
Sophie stood in the doorway.
She looked at the cassette.
“I know that voice.”
Daniel turned.
May you like
“From where?”
“The lady who sends me Christmas cards.”
