Chapter 3 - THE CHRISTMAS TABLE
By Christmas dinner the next evening, Claire knew enough to be afraid and not enough to act.
Thomas had shown her access logs proving Grant entered the storage facility twenty-four hours before she did. But the footage had been deleted. Someone had known where Daniel’s evidence was stored.
Claire returned to the Caldwell house pretending nothing had changed.
Camille occupied her chair again.
Marjorie watched Claire with unconcealed contempt.
Grant drank too quickly.
The tension broke when Claire refused a serving of Marjorie’s casserole.
Marjorie’s eyes narrowed.
“What? Too good for my food now?”
Claire set down her fork.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve never been hungry,” Marjorie said. “That’s your problem. You were handed everything.”
Grant muttered, “Mother.”
But there was no conviction in it.
Marjorie lifted her plate.
For one strange second, Claire thought she was about to leave.
Then Marjorie threw it.
Food struck Claire across the chest and shoulder.
The room went silent.
Claire recoiled, stunned.
Marjorie sneered.
“Be grateful my son married trash like you.”
Claire stared at Grant.
Camille clung to his arm.
“You’re letting this happen?” Claire asked.
Grant’s jaw tightened.
“Shut up. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Camille smiled.
“Your place looks better on me.”
Marjorie laughed.
“She belongs here. You don’t.”
Claire slowly stood.
Humiliation burned away, leaving something colder.
“You’re right,” she said. “Some people don’t belong here.”
Marjorie’s smile faded slightly.
Claire stepped closer.
“I know you were there when Dad crashed.”
Grant froze.
Camille’s smile vanished.
Marjorie went pale.
Then she surged forward and slapped Claire across the face.
“You crazy bitch! What the fuck are you talking about?!”
Claire’s head snapped sideways.
Pain flashed across her cheek.
She turned back slowly.
Marjorie’s chest rose and fell.
Grant stood now.
“Claire, stop this.”
“No.”
Claire touched her face.
“I’m done stopping.”
Marjorie recovered quickly.
Too quickly.
Her expression became controlled again.
“You accuse me in my own house with no evidence?”
Claire watched her.
There it was.
Not panic.
Strategy.
Marjorie was already changing the battlefield.
“Your father was obsessed with destroying this family,” Marjorie continued. “If he filled your head with lies before he died, that is his final cruelty, not mine.”
Grant stepped beside his mother.
“Claire, you’re grieving.”
Camille added softly, “You should probably talk to someone.”
Claire almost admired them.
Three voices.
One narrative.
Claire the unstable widow-daughter.
Marjorie the wounded matriarch.
Grant the concerned husband.
Camille the sympathetic witness.
Then Marjorie smiled faintly.
“You want to know where I was the night your father died?”
Claire waited.
Marjorie leaned closer.
“I was with Grant.”
Claire looked at her husband.
Grant said nothing.
Marjorie’s smile widened.
“And if you try to accuse me publicly, we have twelve people who can prove it.”
Claire felt the floor tilt beneath her.
Because Thomas had told her one thing with absolute certainty.
Marjorie’s car had been captured on a toll camera seven miles from her father’s crash site.
May you like
At 10:41 p.m.
And Daniel had crashed at 10:47.
