Chapter Nineteen
Maci
The detective looked up as soon as I walked into his office.
"Ms. Calloway."
“Graham now.”
I shut the door behind me and placed the small black hard drive on his desk.
"I think this belongs with an old case."
He glanced at the drive, then looked up at me. I slid a yellowed slip with a case number and a name across the desk.
23-001234-Mari Calloway
His expression shifted.
"I remember this."
"I’m afraid I do too."
He picked up the folder and flipped through pages that hadn’t been touched for years.
"The cameras never gave us anything."
"They do now."
He looked at the hard drive.
"What's on it?"
I held his gaze.
"Everything you thought was deleted."
The room fell silent.
"I don't understand."
"You will." I stood up. "When you watch it, you'll see why that file should never have been closed."
Before he could ask another question, I walked toward the door.
"Mrs. Graham"
I stopped.
"If what's on this drive is what you say it is."
I looked over my shoulder.
"It is, and Detective," I rested my hand on the doorknob. "She deserves to have her name spoken like a victim, not a case number."
I left, feeling like a heavy weight had finally been lifted. By the time I got to the detention center, the detective was probably watching history play out, frame by frame.
Camille smiled the moment she saw me, her face bright with hope.
That was the first thing I noticed. She rushed to the visitation window and picked up the phone.
"Maci."
I picked up the phone and put it to my ear.
"You came back."
"I did."
She looked at my face closely.
"You've heard something. You talked to the detectives, didn't you?"
I kept quiet.
"They found whoever did this, didn’t they?"
She leaned in.
I said nothing. I reached into my purse, took out an old photo, and pressed it against the glass.
Camille looked up, her face going pale. In the photo, Mari looked young and bright, one hand on her stomach. Her other arm was around her fiancé’s waist, and another woman stood on the other side, her hand on Mari’s stomach too.
Camille smiled for a moment, then looked at me, confused.
"I know."
She frowned at me.
"Why are you showing me this?"
I folded my hands together.
"Tell me about her."
Camille blinked at me.
"What?"
"Tell me about Mari," I said, tapping the photo.
We sat in silence.
"She was,” Camille swallowed. "My friend."
"No, she wasn’t." My voice stayed calm.
Camille stared at me, searching my face.
"You know," I leaned in closer. “People used to tell us we looked alike."
Her confused look slowly changed to recognition. She glanced from the photo to my face and back again.
"No," she whispered, shaking her head slowly. "No."
A tear slid down my cheek.
"I'm Mari's sister."
The phone slipped from Camille’s hand and swung by the cord until she grabbed it again with shaking fingers.
She shook her head hard.
"No, I don't believe you."
"You don't have to." Another tear ran down her face. "I've spent every day knowing exactly who you are."
Camille started to breathe faster.
"You..." She couldn't finish the sentence. "You moved into the neighborhood, right across the street. You..."
She covered her mouth.
"Oh, my God."
I nodded when she realized the truth.
"Now you're beginning to understand."
Camille shook all over.
"Maci?"
"My name is Maci Graham, used to be Calloway before I married. But before I was Maci to you, I was Mari's little sister."
The room fell silent.
"I went to the police this morning."
Her head snapped up.
"What?"
"I dropped off a hard drive."
She turned pale.
"What hard drive?"
"The one Kenny thought he erased."
She opened her mouth slightly.
"He deleted the camera footage." I held her gaze. "But he couldn't delete the copy someone else already had."
Camille started breathing faster.
"I know you went to her house."
She shut her eyes tight.
"I know you walked through that front door."
A tear ran down her cheek.
"I know exactly what you carried into that house."
I kept my voice steady.
"A lemon pound cake."
She caught her breath.
"You told her it was a peace offering or something along those lines, that you weren’t the other woman. I wouldn’t have taken shit from you."
I forced myself to swallow.
"She trusted you enough to cut the first slice."
We sat in silence for a moment.
"You didn't poison her coffee or her tea. You baked it into something she would've never questioned."
A tear rolled down my face.
"You folded fentanyl into the batter and handed it to her with a smile."
Camille went rigid.
"I..."
She stopped, unable to finish.
I leaned in toward the glass.
"You watched my sister take the first bite. You watched her thank your lying ass."
"And then you went home and told Kenny to erase every second of you walking through that front door."
Camille's face went pale.
"Yeah, I know everything."
"But he chose me."
I stayed still. Camille shook her head, as if trying to convince herself.
"He loved me, and He was supposed to be with me."
Her voice got stronger.
"I didn't steal him. He kept coming back."
I looked at her through the glass.
"So that made it okay?"
New tears ran down her face.
"You don't understand."
"Then help me fucking understand."
She struggled to swallow.
"Mari wouldn't let go. She kept saying she'd forgive him and that they were going to work it out."
Her breathing became shaky.
"I told myself..." She stopped. "I told myself everything would be different if she was just..."
She couldn't finish. I leaned closer.
"If she was just what?"
She covered her mouth with her hand.
"I never meant..."
"No." I cut her off. "You don't get to tell me what you meant."
The room fell silent.
"My sister is dead. So is her baby. Laid out on those steps in her home, left to die. My parents buried a daughter. I buried the only person who ever knew me before the world did."
Another tear slid down my cheek.
"And you stood in the middle of all of that wearing her life as if it belonged to you."
Camille started to cry.
"I've paid for it."
"No." I shook my head. "You've only just started."
I stood up slowly.
"You spent years living a life that wasn't yours.
You wanted her life so much, you moved right next door to the house she shared with Kenny.
You built a life that should have been hers.
You stood in that kitchen acting like everything was normal.
Baking cakes, leading a club and shit." I let out a small laugh, but there was nothing funny about it.
I stopped for a moment.
"You even convinced yourself you deserved it."
Camille sobbed openly now.
"I've hated myself every day."
I kept looking at her.
"And somehow my sister is still the one who paid the price."
The room went quiet. We didn’t say a word.
Since I walked into the visitation room, this was the first time Camille had nothing to say. She put her face in her hands.
"I was angry and scared. I loved him.”
"And so did my sister, but you don’t think I know that?"
She looked at me, tears in her eyes.
"You led the club she loved. You smiled every Thursday, and every Thursday I smiled at you."
Her eyes widened as something clicked for her.
"The lemons from your tree?"
I gave a small smile.
"I see the math is mathing now. Two plus two is finally making four."
"You used my allergy against me?"
"You did tell me a lot about yourself."
She stared at me in horror.
"The flowers..."
I said nothing.
"The note and Oh my God, Kenny!”
I watched her quietly. One realization after another hit her. Now, every memory, every talk, every smile between us felt like something she couldn’t trust.
I leaned in closer to the glass.
"You asked me once why I moved to Lemon Grove Estates."
A tear ran down my cheek.
"I came home."
Camille broke down. Her sobs filled the room as she hit the table with her fist.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
I grabbed my purse.
"Now," I said, looking at the woman who had spent years living a life that didn’t belong to her.
"You finally know what it feels like to have everything taken from you."
The correctional officer walked over to Camille as her crying turned into desperate pleas.
"Maci!"
I stopped.
"Maci, please!"
I looked back one last time and picked up the phone again.
"The difference between us is that I still have to live with missing her."
I turned and walked away. As I headed down the corridor, Camille’s crying echoed behind me.