Chapter 9 - THE LAST THING CLAIRE GAVE HER
Victoria requested another interview.
This time she told the rest.
Claire had not died immediately.
After striking the fireplace, she remained conscious.
Barely.
Lorraine panicked.
Marcus wanted to call an ambulance.
Lorraine refused.
“She said everything would come out,” Victoria told investigators.
The trust.
The forged records.
The money.
Marcus eventually agreed to move Claire.
Victoria followed them outside.
Claire was placed in the back seat of Lorraine's car.
Victoria sat beside her.
During the drive, Claire regained consciousness.
She reached toward Victoria.
Then she removed the pendant.
Claire pressed it into her sister's hand.
Victoria remembered her words exactly.
“Don't become her.”
Those were the last words Claire ever spoke to Victoria.
Minutes later, Claire lost consciousness again.
Victoria claimed she believed they were driving to a hospital.
Instead, Marcus turned toward Briar House.
Victoria began screaming.
Lorraine threatened her.
By the time they arrived, Claire was no longer breathing.
“What happened next?” Reeves asked.
Victoria cried.
“My mother locked me upstairs.”
From her bedroom window, Victoria saw Marcus working near the greenhouse.
Two days later concrete was poured.
Lorraine constructed the runaway story.
Victoria was told exactly what to say.
Including the pendant.
“You tell them she was wearing it,” Lorraine said.
Victoria obeyed.
“Why keep it?” Reeves asked.
Victoria's answer matched Ruth's.
“Because it was the last thing Claire gave me.”
She hid it for sixteen years.
Through college.
Through moving apartments.
Through relationships.
Even through her engagement to Ethan.
She never wore it.
Never displayed it.
Never destroyed it.
It remained inside a small wooden box.
A private punishment.
But then Lily found it.
And Victoria saw sixteen years collapsing at once.
“That doesn't excuse what you did to Lily,” her attorney warned.
“I know.”
For Ethan, the confession changed some things.
Victoria had not killed Claire.
She had been a frightened seventeen-year-old under the control of two adults.
But that wasn't the whole story.
Because Victoria had become an adult.
At eighteen.
Twenty-one.
Twenty-five.
Thirty.
Thirty-three.
She had thousands of chances to speak.
Instead she accepted Claire's money.
She signed documents.
She lied whenever old investigators asked questions.
And she built a new life with Ethan on top of a grave nobody knew existed.
Ruth described it differently.
“Seventeen-year-old Victoria was a victim.”
Then she paused.
“Thirty-three-year-old Victoria made choices.”
May you like
Ethan agreed.
And Lily had paid the price for the final one.
