Not support.
Become.
“You didn’t want to join my family,” I said.
Natalie’s eyes filled with anger.
“You think I wanted scraps?”
I stared at her.
She continued.
“Laura always received everything without fighting for it.”
“That isn't true.”
“You didn’t know her before you.”
“And apparently I didn't know you after her.”
Natalie laughed bitterly.
“She had the friends. The career. The house. You. Then Sophie.”
“So you thought you deserved them?”
“I thought for once I deserved not to come second.”
“You cannot inherit another person's life.”
Her expression turned cold.
“That is exactly what Laura told me.”
A door opened somewhere behind the kitchen.
A man stepped inside.
Older.
Thin.
Scar along his jaw.
I recognized him from Pierce’s photographs.
Marcus Vale.
Alive.
Natalie turned sharply.
“You shouldn't be here.”
Marcus ignored her.
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where is Sophie?”
“With your brother.”
Relief nearly knocked me off my feet.
Marcus continued.
“Aaron got her out through the back entrance.”
I looked at Natalie.
For the first time, she seemed uncertain.
Marcus placed a phone on the table.
“It's recording.”
Natalie’s face changed.
Then I understood.
Marcus had not disappeared because Natalie killed him.
He disappeared because he was collecting evidence against her.
For years.
Laura eventually discovered he was alive.
She contacted him.
Together, they tried to document Natalie’s behavior.
“What happened to Laura?” I asked.
Marcus looked down.
Natalie said nothing.
“Tell me.”
Marcus took a breath.
“The night she died, she asked me to come to the house.”
“Why?”
“She had found something.”
“What?”
“Payments.”
Natalie had been paying a private investigator to follow our family.
She knew when I worked.
When Sophie was at preschool.