Chapter 3 - THE SHOES BESIDE THE STAIRCASE
“You told me you had never been inside my house while Catherine was alive.”
Gabriel's voice was quiet.
Rebecca Sterling had learned during their engagement that his quietest voice was the one she should fear most.
She glanced at Benjamin.
“Gabriel, please. Not in front of the child.”
“The child is the reason we're having this conversation.”
Benjamin stood beside Olivia, one hand holding her apron.
His eyes never left Rebecca's shoes.
Gabriel turned toward his son.
“Benjamin, you don't have to say anything else tonight.”
The boy nodded.
“Olivia, please take him somewhere comfortable.”
Olivia hesitated.
Rebecca immediately seized the opportunity.
“Yes, Olivia. Take him upstairs. This has nothing to do with you.”
Gabriel looked at his fiancée.
“Don't speak to her that way.”
Rebecca's mouth tightened.
Olivia took Benjamin's hand.
“Come on, sweetheart. We can sit in the library.”
But before they left, Benjamin tugged on his father's sleeve.
“Daddy?”
Gabriel crouched.
“Yes, buddy?”
Benjamin pointed toward Rebecca.
“She was crying, too.”
Then he left with Olivia.
The room became painfully silent.
Gabriel straightened.
Rebecca stared after the boy.
For the first time that evening, her expression looked less angry than ashamed.
“Explain,” Gabriel said.
Rebecca slowly sat down.
“I knew Catherine before you introduced us.”
Gabriel felt his stomach tighten.
“How?”
“Through the Crescent Children's Foundation. She volunteered there. I managed fundraising.”
“And you never thought to mention that?”
“I knew how much you missed her.”
“You let me believe you were a stranger to my wife.”
Rebecca rubbed her forehead.
“Catherine contacted me three days before she died. She wanted access to old donation records.”
“Why?”
“She believed your family's charitable trust had been used to move money that belonged to injured workers.”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“What money?”
“Compensation payments. Medical assistance. Settlement funds.”
Gabriel knew the trust.
His father had created it decades earlier after several dockworkers were seriously injured.
Victor now managed its investments.
Gabriel had never examined the original accounts.
He had trusted his brother.
“What did you give Catherine?”
“Copies of transactions from the late 1990s.”
“And then?”
Rebecca stared at her hands.
“Victor found out.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“He told me those records were confidential. He said Catherine was trying to destroy your family.”
“And you believed him?”
“At first.”
Rebecca looked up.
“Gabriel, I was trying to protect the foundation. Victor controlled its largest funding source. Hundreds of children depended on those programs.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“So you protected the money instead of my wife?”
Rebecca flinched.
“That isn't fair.”
“Catherine died, Rebecca.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“Then stop asking me to make this comfortable for you.”
Rebecca lowered her gaze.
Finally, she told him she had accompanied Victor to the mansion that night.
Victor had claimed Catherine intended to surrender financial records to a newspaper.
Rebecca had wanted to retrieve documents containing her own signatures.
She admitted authorizing transfers she hadn't properly checked.
She had been afraid of losing her career.
“Were you on the staircase?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes.”
“When Catherine fell?”
Rebecca's hands began trembling.
“I heard her shouting. I ran toward the landing.”
“What did you see?”
“Victor holding her arm.”
Gabriel felt his pulse pounding.
“And?”
“She pulled away. I reached toward her, but everything happened so quickly.”
“Did you touch her?”
Rebecca looked away.
“I don't remember.”
Gabriel stared.
“You don't remember whether you touched a woman who fell to her death?”
Rebecca began crying.
“I've spent eighteen months trying to forget that night.”
Gabriel stepped back.
“And I've spent eighteen months trying to understand why my son won't speak.”
That silenced her.
When Miles returned, Gabriel instructed him to arrange a private interview with Evelyn and preserve Rebecca's statement.
Rebecca stood.
“Are you having me arrested?”
“I'm finding out what happened to Catherine.”
“Gabriel, I love you.”
He looked at her engagement ring.
“I don't know what that means anymore.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“Please don't do this.”
Gabriel extended his hand.
“The ring.”
She stared at him.
“You can't be serious.”
“I'm postponing the wedding. Until we know the truth, there is no engagement.”
For a moment, Rebecca looked ready to argue.
Then she removed the diamond ring and placed it on his desk.
Gabriel didn't touch it.
“Stay in the west guest suite tonight. Miles will arrange somewhere else for you tomorrow.”
Rebecca walked toward the door.
But she stopped beside Catherine's storybook.
Her face changed.
“Gabriel?”
He looked up.
“Why is the book open to that page?”
He glanced down.
The illustration showed a little boy beneath an enormous oak tree.
“Benjamin pointed to it.”
Rebecca went completely still.
“Where did you find the book?”
“In the attic.”
“Did you find anything else?”
Gabriel studied her.
“What are you looking for?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“Rebecca.”
She hurried from the study.
Gabriel watched her go.
Then he picked up the storybook.
It was nearly twenty years old, purchased long before Benjamin was born.
Catherine had loved old children's books.
She'd spent weeks restoring this one, replacing torn pages and recording herself reading the story.
Gabriel remembered teasing her about the effort.
“You could buy him a new one.”
She had smiled.
“Some things are worth repairing.”
Now he examined the final illustration.
The oak tree had a broad trunk, spreading branches, and a hollow near its roots.
Something about it seemed familiar.
Gabriel walked to the study window.
Across the south lawn stood the oldest live oak on the property.
Catherine's favorite tree.
She used to sit beneath it with Benjamin, telling stories while he collected acorns.
The illustration wasn't a generic oak.
It was their oak.
Even the unusual branch growing almost horizontally toward the pond appeared in the picture.
Gabriel called Miles back.
“Did Catherine ever ask the gardeners to work around the south lawn oak?”
Miles thought for a moment.
“She wouldn't let anyone remove it. There was a dispute about its roots damaging the irrigation system.”
“Who wanted it removed?”
“Victor.”
Gabriel looked back at the illustration.
“When?”
“About two weeks before Mrs. DeMarco died.”
Something tightened inside Gabriel's chest.
He remembered Catherine arguing with Victor during Sunday dinner.
She had told him the tree wasn't his to destroy.
Victor had laughed and called her sentimental.
At the time, Gabriel had considered it a harmless disagreement.
Now he wondered whether Catherine had hidden something there.
The following morning, Gabriel found Olivia in the library.
Benjamin was asleep on a couch, curled beneath a blanket.
Olivia sat nearby with an unfinished cup of coffee.
“You stayed all night?” Gabriel asked.
She stood.
“He was having bad dreams.”
“You should have gone home.”
“My sister stayed with Mia. She's fine.”
Gabriel knew Olivia's six-year-old daughter.
Mia had visited the estate twice during school holidays.
Benjamin had once allowed her to play with his wooden trains.
“Thank you,” he said.
Olivia looked surprised.
“You don't have to thank me for caring about him.”
Gabriel sat across from her.
“Did Catherine ever mention the oak tree to you?”
Olivia considered the question.
“No, sir. But Benjamin talks about it with pictures.”
“What do you mean?”
“He draws the same tree whenever he's frightened.”
She opened the sketchbook resting beside the couch.
Several pages showed the oak.
On one page, Benjamin had drawn a woman burying something near its roots.
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Who drew this with him?”
“Nobody.”
“When?”
“Last Tuesday.”
Gabriel stared at the drawing.
The woman had brown hair.
A blue dress.
And a small white shape in her hands.
Catherine.
Olivia touched the corner of the page.
“He always taps the ground beneath the tree. I thought he was remembering his mother.”
Gabriel stood.
“Get Miles.”
Within minutes, the security chief joined them.
Gabriel showed him the drawing.
“I want the area beneath that oak examined carefully. No heavy equipment.”
Miles studied the page.
Then he frowned.
“Sir, there's a problem.”
“What problem?”
“Your brother submitted an emergency removal request yesterday afternoon.”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“For what?”
“The oak. He claimed the trunk was diseased and could fall on the house.”
Gabriel felt a surge of anger.
“Cancel it.”
“I already tried. The landscaping contractor says Victor paid the entire job in advance and ordered them to begin before sunrise.”
Gabriel glanced toward the window.
Beyond the south lawn, a yellow excavator had entered through the service gate.
Two men were unloading chainsaws.
And Victor DeMarco was standing beneath Catherine's oak tree.
Watching.
Gabriel grabbed his coat.
But before he reached the door, Olivia called after him.
“Mr. DeMarco!”
He turned.
She was holding Benjamin's drawing.
“I think there's something you should see.”
She pointed to the white shape beneath the tree.
It wasn't a box.
It was a wristwatch.
May you like
And beneath it, Benjamin had written three uneven words.
GRANDMA'S BROKEN WATCH.
