Chapter Fourteen #3
Franklin squeezed his eyes shut a moment and groaned before he took the manila envelope from beneath his arm.
Extending it out to them, Franklin walked to the porch steps.
His movements were slow and cautious. No sudden moves to make them think he could be going for a gun.
As soon as Livvy took the envelope, Franklin went back into the yard.
The envelope was at least two inches thick, and when Livvy opened it, Ethan saw it was some paper, some of which had been photocopied. There were also two old cassette tapes.
“I’m sure you’ll want to look through all of that,” Franklin explained, “but I can give you the broad strokes now. Let me say first, though, that I’m so very sorry for what Chloe did.”
That ice inside Ethan went up a notch. “What did she do?” he asked.
Franklin tipped his head to the envelope.
“It’s all in there, a mix of memos and recordings of conversations and meetings.
” He dragged in a long breath. “I didn’t know it at the time, but a few weeks after Belinda and her daughter disappeared, Hank Stover started blackmailing Chloe. Some of his notes are in there.”
“Blackmailing her for what?” Ethan asked, though he was pretty sure he knew where this was going.
The doctor swallowed hard. “For murdering Belinda.”
And there it was. Maybe a lie. But this felt like the cold, hard truth.
“I didn’t find that file until after you came to New Hope and told us that Zadie was dead,” Franklin continued.
“Chloe said something after you left. Something about how the past should just die, so when she went to San Antonio for a meeting, I searched her office. I didn’t ransack it,” he insisted. “And I didn’t kill her.”
Again, Ethan had no idea if that was true, and at the moment, he didn’t care. He needed to hear what’d happened to Livvy’s mother.
“After you found the file, you read it and listened to the recordings?” he prompted.
Franklin nodded. “And it took me a while to make sense of it. Then, I realized Hank had tried to blackmail her. The details were all there. Chloe had gotten enraged when she believed Belinda had slept with Paul.”
“Did she?” Livvy asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, but Chloe wasn’t always rational when it came to Paul.
Anyway, on the recording, Chloe admits she put on surgical gloves, grabbed a knife and went after Belinda when she ran away with you.
Unbeknownst to Chloe, Hank was at New Hope visiting his sister, and he followed all three of you.
He saw Chloe confront Belinda at the old house. And saw Chloe kill her.”
Hell. Ethan could see it all playing out. The murder that had become Livvy’s nightmare.
“Chloe stabbed Belinda multiple times,” Franklin went on. “And put her in the bathtub.”
Livvy made a soft sound—part groan, part sob. “Where was I during all of this?” she asked.
He glanced away for a moment. “According to what Chloe said on the recording, you were there. You tried to take the knife from her, but she pushed you. You fell, hit your head and went unconscious. Chloe admitted to Hank later that she took the knife because she knew it would have your prints on it and not hers.”
“Why not just kill me?” Livvy asked. “I was a witness.”
The doctor looked her straight in the eyes. “I don’t know. Maybe she couldn’t kill a child. Maybe she decided to take her chances that no one would believe you if you told anyone what you’d seen.”
Ethan considered that. Yeah, that was possible. And Chloe could have possibly disposed of the body and cleaned up the blood after Livvy left. That way, if Livvy did indeed lead the police back to the house, there’d be no proof that a murder had happened.
“So, how the hell did the knife end up with my ex-mother-in-law?” he demanded.
Franklin looked genuinely surprised by the question. “I guess Chloe must have sent it to her.”
Ethan couldn’t think of a reason for Chloe to do that unless she wanted to muddy the waters of the investigation into Zadie’s death.
“Did Chloe kill Zadie, too?” Livvy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Franklin admitted. “Probably,” he amended. “I found that file in the storage room off Chloe’s office. The file folder was sticking up a little, as if someone had recently pulled it out. Zadie could have done that.”
Yeah. And it could have given Chloe motive to hire Hank to kill her. Could have. But again, Ethan didn’t intend to take Franklin’s word for it.
“Why did Chloe keep this file since it supposedly incriminates her for murder?” Ethan asked.
“From what I can tell, it was some kind of insurance. Chloe paid Hank some hush money but then told him if he came back for more that his blackmail note and what he said on the recording could make him an accessory after the fact for murder. He’d be arrested, too.”
So, Chloe and Hank had made a pact to hide the truth. To hide a murder. And Livvy had become collateral damage. Heck, so had Zadie and Sunny.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t believe this was the first time my sister killed someone in a jealous rage,” Franklin went on. “Look into the death of a woman named Ivy Milbrath. I think she had something to do with that.”
Anthony’s mother. Oh, they would look more all right. But first, Ethan had to stop all of this from crushing Livvy. He could feel the panic and dread coming off her in hot waves.
Franklin must have noticed it, too. “I’m sorry for the damage my sister did,” he repeated, heading back to his car. “So very sorry.”
Ethan didn’t waste any time. He eased Livvy back inside, shut the door, locked it and reengaged the security. He’d barely turned toward her before she all but collapsed into his arms.