The next day, I sat across from Chelsea in a room reserved for police questioning. The more I stared, the more I noticed she’d never reminded me more of the photos I’d seen of her real father than she did today. She looked haggard and frail. Sleep deprived. Detectives had been through one round of questioning already, trying to get her to confess. So far she’d refused to speak. At present, she wasn’t speaking to me either.
“I’m flying home today,” I said. “I wanted to see you before I left.”
She responded with a shrug.
“Mind if I tell you a story?” I asked. “It’s more of a theory, but I’d like to run it by you anyway.”
Another shrug.
Tough crowd.
“I used to admire this writer. She was well known, respected. She was murdered one evening after a book signing, poisoned by her own daughter after the daughter discovered a secret her mother had been keeping from her all her life. At first it was hard for me to see the daughter as a suspect. I’d seen the agony in the daughter’s eyes after learning what happened to her mother, and I didn’t want to believe it was possible for her to do what she did. As the facts came out, I learned the writer was penning a memoir she hadn’t told many people about. When news of the memoir started getting around, those affected by what the writer might say about them in her book began to worry.”
I paused then said, “How am I doing so far?”
“How would I know? It’s your story. Not mine.”
“Like all good stories, this one has a twist. See, even after the police figured out the daughter was responsible for her mother’s death, the daughter still didn’t confess to killing her mother. The man who raised her said he did it, even though I knew he didn’t. But he loved her enough to do it anyway. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
She remained silent.
I layered in a dose of reality, made it personal.
“Here’s what I believe happened, Chelsea. You poisoned your mother with pesticide you stole from one of your fiancé’s parents’ ranches. The day he came with you to my hotel, I noticed he had a bit of hay stuck beneath his right shoe. I asked Detective Murphy to check out where Bradley’s parents’ wealth came from. Because of the Claibornes’s political affiliations, he didn’t need to check them out. They’re well known here. He told me the Claibornes own several ranches in this state. Turns out fluoroacetate is used to control the predators on their farms, so naturally, it would be easy for you to get your hands on it, and you did.”
She lowered her head. I kept going.
“Once your mother was dead, you must have told Porter what you did. Not at first, I don’t think. I’m guessing you did it after I broke into your house looking for the flash drive. It scared you, and even though you were angry with him just like you were at your mother, you confessed, and he tried to help you cover it up the only way he knew how—by leading police to believe someone else did it, so the focus wouldn’t be on either one of you. He also wanted to contain the fact you were Elias’s daughter, and that’s why he wanted the flash drive. He didn’t know whether Alexandra wrote about you in her book or not, but he wasn’t taking any chances. And if he could get his hands on it before Barbara did, he could contain it. While I admire his love for you, his plan wasn’t well thought out.”
“I didn’t do anything,” she said. “You can’t prove anything.”
“But you did, Chelsea. You were angry. Not just because she lied, and not just because she wasn’t the kind of mother she should have been, but because if your secret got out, not only would the world see you differently, the people around you would see you differently. Bradley. Bradley’s parents.”
I reached across the table, grabbed her hand. “My story might not be one-hundred-percent accurate, but I’ll bet it’s close. Whatever happens now, I want you to know one thing. Even after what you’ve done, you’re not your mother, and you’re not Elias Pratt. One of the best ways you can prove that to yourself and to everyone else is to tell the truth.”
I slid the chair back, stood, and walked to the door.
“Hey.”
I turned back. “Yeah?”
“Interesting story. Too bad it’s not true.”
I shrugged. “What do I know? I’m just a writer.”