Chapter 6 - WHAT SOPHIE KNEW
I read the message three times.
Maya asked to see it.
Daniel noticed the change in my face.
“Who is that?”
“No one.”
His laugh was bitter.
“Now you’re hiding things?”
The hypocrisy was almost impressive.
Maya told Daniel and Richard to leave.
They refused until she reminded them that any attempt to remove records could be interpreted as evidence tampering.
Claire left first.
Richard followed.
Daniel remained at the doorway.
“This is still my home.”
“For tonight,” Maya said.
He looked at me.
“You’re going to believe an attorney over your husband?”
“I believed my husband for twelve years.”
“That is why I need an attorney.”
He left without another word.
At midnight, the doorbell rang.
Sophie stood outside alone.
Her cheeks were wet from the cold and from crying.
“I took a rideshare,” she said.
“Dad thinks I’m at Grandpa’s hotel.”
I brought her inside.
She had turned seventeen two months earlier.
I had planned her birthday dinner, ordered the cake, and stayed awake until three in the morning helping her finish a college application.
Daniel had arrived after dessert.
Now she sat at the kitchen table and looked ashamed to meet my eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“You did not create this.”
“I knew about Claire.”
The words hurt even though I had expected them.
“How long?”
“Since Christmas.”
Six months.
“He said you knew.”
“I didn’t.”
“He showed us messages.”
“What messages?”
Sophie opened her phone.
The screenshots appeared to show conversations between Daniel and me.
In them, I said I no longer loved him.
I said the children were too much responsibility.
I said I wanted a quiet life without them.
“They’re fake,” I whispered.
Sophie nodded.
“I know that now.”
She scrolled to a family group chat.
The title was New Beginnings.
Daniel, Richard, Lauren, Claire, Sophie, and Noah were members.
I was not.
Messages discussed the Cancun flights.
Restaurant reservations.
A photographer.
A private dinner where Daniel planned to propose to Claire.
Sophie wiped her eyes.
“I thought you abandoned us.”
“I would never do that.”
“I said terrible things about you.”
“You were lied to.”
She showed me a voice message from Lauren.
Once Claire is officially part of the family, Rachel will stop causing problems.
Then Sophie opened another conversation.
It was between Daniel and Richard.
She had photographed it from Daniel’s laptop weeks earlier.
Richard had written, The complication from the March surgery cannot reach the board.
Daniel replied, Rachel is reviewing the quarterly accounts.
Richard answered, Then move the records before she sees the payment.
I remembered the anonymous message.
“Do you know who the patient was?” I asked.
Sophie shook her head.
“But I heard Grandpa and Dad arguing.”
“What did they say?”
“Dad said the device failed.”
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“And Grandpa?”
“He said dead patients don’t testify.”
