Eleven forty-two.
I had lied to the police.
I had told them he had been home all evening because he took my face in both hands and said, Claire, your mother may be hurt. The police cannot waste time questioning me.
I had repeated his story word for word.
A sixteen-year-old girl trying to save her mother.
Instead, I had protected the man who killed her.
I folded in half.
Ben grabbed me and lowered me onto a plastic chair.
“I’m going to be sick.”
He crouched in front of me.
“Breathe.”
“Don’t tell me to breathe.”
“I need you conscious.”
“Why? So you can tell me the rest of my life is a lie?”
“No. So we can stop him.”
I looked up.
“Stop him from what?”
Ben glanced at the letter.
“Rosie believed your father knew she had discovered the truth.”
A coldness spread through me.
“The pregnancy complication—”
“The doctors think it was natural.”
“You don’t?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect him.”
