Chapter 3 - What Natalie Left BehindDetective Morales arrived before seven.
That alone felt wrong.
For twelve years, my house had been the one place where no member of the Whitmore family existed.
I had bought the little two-story home outside Columbus three years earlier. Nothing fancy. White kitchen cabinets. A narrow staircase that creaked on the fourth step. A backyard where I grew tomatoes badly and lavender surprisingly well.
It was mine.
Caleb had never shouted there.
Dad had never slammed a fist against the table there.
Mom had never whispered excuses behind a closed door.
Now two detectives sat on my couch with my brother’s photograph between them.
“Why was Natalie trying to contact me?” I asked.
Detective Morales removed a small notebook.
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
“I’ve never heard her name.”
Pike watched me carefully.
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
Morales placed another photograph on the coffee table.
Natalie looked about thirty. Dark brown hair. Green coat. A tired but determined face.
Something about her expression bothered me.
Not because I recognized her.
Because she looked scared.
“She was thirty-one,” Morales said. “Worked as a bookkeeper for a construction company owned by your brother.”
I stared at her.
“Caleb owns a company?”
“Whitmore Development Group.”
Of course he did.
The boy who had once smashed my laptop because he wanted it had somehow become a businessman.
“He started it with money from your father,” Pike said.
That sounded more familiar.
“What happened to Natalie?”
The detectives looked at one another again.
Morales answered.
“Her body was found early Saturday morning near an abandoned warehouse outside Dayton.”
My hometown.
“How did she die?”
“We’re not releasing that.”
“But you think Caleb did it.”
“We’re investigating several people.”
“That means yes.”
Pike leaned forward.
“We found communications between Natalie and your brother. Their relationship had become hostile.”
“What kind of relationship?”
“She handled payroll and vendor accounts. She apparently discovered financial irregularities.”
I almost smiled bitterly.
Caleb had graduated from stealing lunch money and electronics.
“How do I fit into this?”
Morales took out her phone.
She opened an image.
It was a screenshot of an email.
The recipient address belonged to me.
My private email.
The one I had created years after leaving home.
Subject: YOU DON’T KNOW ME, BUT I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU.
My stomach tightened.
“I never got this.”
“It was found in Natalie’s drafts.”
The email had never been sent.
Morales scrolled.
There were three more.
All addressed to me.
All unsent.
One subject line made my skin go cold.
CALEB DIDN’T STOP AFTER YOU LEFT.
I looked up.
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
Morales hesitated.
“We know Natalie was collecting information.”
“About what?”
“Your brother.”
“And?”
“And possibly your parents.”
The room seemed smaller.
I suddenly remembered Mom standing on my porch.
There was a woman.
Police are asking questions.
Not grief.
Not shock.
Fear.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Pike reached into his folder.
“We need to understand what happened when you were fifteen.”
I laughed without humor.
“You have the police report.”
“We have a police report saying you were injured during an argument.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Tell us.”
I looked toward my kitchen.
My hands had started shaking again.
I hated that.
Twelve years later and Caleb could still make my body react before my mind caught up.
“He was seventeen,” I said. “He wanted my laptop. I locked my bedroom door. He kicked it until the frame broke.”
Neither detective interrupted.
“I ran downstairs to call 911. He grabbed a beer bottle from the coffee table and smashed it against the railing.”
I could still hear the glass.
“He cut me with it.”
Morales’s expression hardened.
“Where?”
“My side. Shoulder. Arm.”
“How serious?”
“Twenty-three stitches. Blood loss. Infection afterward.”
“And your parents?”
“My mother called an ambulance only after I passed out.”
Pike looked down.
“Did Caleb face charges?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because when I woke up at the hospital, my father told me Caleb could lose everything if I lied.”
Morales frowned.
“He told you that you had lied?”
“Yes.”
“What did he claim happened?”
“That I attacked Caleb first. That we wrestled. That I fell into broken glass.”
“Was that true?”
“No.”
“Did anyone pressure you to confirm that?”
I looked at her.
“My father told me if Caleb got arrested, it would be because I had destroyed his life. My mother told me families forgive.”
Pike’s jaw tightened.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“You were fifteen.”
“I know.”
“They falsified the account anyway.”
“Yes.”
Morales wrote something down.
“When did you leave?”
“That night.”
“You were released that night?”
“Against medical advice. Dad complained about the bill. Mom signed me out.”
I could see Morales trying not to react.
“I walked to a bus station before sunrise.”
“You had somewhere to go?”
“No.”
That answer landed harder than I expected.
Because saying it aloud reminded me just how young I had been.
No plan.
No safe adult.
No money beyond forty-two dollars I took from the kitchen junk drawer.
A stranger named Mrs. Alvarez had found me half-conscious at the Dayton station and called her sister, who ran a youth shelter.
That shelter saved my life.
Nobody in my family ever came looking.
Not once.
Until tonight.
Pike broke the silence.
“Claire, Natalie had copies of your hospital records.”
I froze.
“What?”
“She also had the original responding paramedic’s notes.”
I stared at him.
“What notes?”
Morales opened a scanned page.
“According to the paramedic, you repeatedly said, ‘My brother cut me.’”
My throat closed.
The official report had buried that.
Natalie had found it.
“Why would she care?”
“That’s what we need to determine.”
The detectives left shortly after midnight.
They gave me a card and told me to call if anyone contacted me.
At 12:18 a.m., someone did.
A blocked number.
I ignored it.
It rang again.
Then again.
On the fourth call, I answered.
Nobody spoke.
I heard breathing.
“Caleb?”
Silence.
My hand tightened around the phone.
Then a man’s voice whispered:
“You should have given them the alibi.”
The call ended.
I called Detective Morales immediately.
By 12:40, a patrol car sat outside my house.
I didn’t sleep.
At sunrise, I walked downstairs and found an envelope pushed beneath my front door.
No stamp.
No return address.
Inside was a small flash drive.
And a handwritten note.
May you like
Three words.
NATALIE TRUSTED YOU.
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