Chapter 3 - RACHEL HAD ALREADY BEEN WARNED
Megan spent that afternoon in the emergency department.
The burns were painful and serious enough to require follow-up care, but doctors expected them to heal without surgery if there were no complications.
That should have comforted her.
Instead Megan kept staring at her phone.
Rachel had called seventeen times.
When Megan finally answered, her youngest sister said nothing for three seconds.
Then:
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’m already in the parking garage.”
Rachel Avery had always been the family member who asked the question everyone else wished she wouldn’t.
At thirty-three, she worked as an office manager for a dental practice and had two children with her wife, Claire. She lived forty minutes away mostly because, according to Dana, Rachel had “always needed distance.”
Rachel described it differently.
“I got tired of being assigned a personality before I walked into the room.”
She entered Megan’s treatment bay carrying a phone charger and an oversized cardigan.
Her eyes went immediately to Megan’s bandaged forearms.
“Did she really pour it?”
Megan nodded.
Rachel shut her eyes.
“I knew this was getting bad.”
“What do you mean?”
Rachel pulled a chair closer.
“Dana called me last Tuesday.”
Megan frowned.
“About what?”
“You.”
Of course.
Rachel continued.
“She said you were becoming obsessed with Mom’s accounts. She said the divorce made you paranoid. Then she asked whether I remembered you having ‘episodes’ when Dad died.”
Megan stared at her.
“I was nineteen and depressed.”
“I know.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That.”
Rachel leaned forward.
“Then she asked whether I would back her if she needed to get you out of Mom’s house.”
Megan’s mouth went dry.
The house was still technically part of Evelyn’s estate. Under the estate plan, all three daughters would eventually share equally in what remained after debts and expenses.
Dana, as executor, controlled much of the process.
Megan suddenly understood why Dana had repeatedly told her not to change the utilities into her own name.
Not to forward mail.
Not to contact the estate attorney directly.
Dana wanted every practical relationship to run through her.
A police officer came by the hospital that evening.
Megan described the attack.
She also showed the officer her photos, her message to Rachel, and the nurse-line callback log.
The officer asked what the argument had been about immediately before the assault.
Megan answered truthfully.
“Our mother’s money.”
Rachel looked at her.
That was the first time Megan had said it to anyone outside the family.
Later, after the officer left, Rachel opened her phone.
“I brought something.”
She showed Megan screenshots of messages Dana had sent over the previous month.
One stood out.
If Megan keeps pushing this affair lie, I may need to prove she’s unstable before she damages the estate.
Megan frowned.
“What affair lie?”
Rachel nodded.
“Exactly.”
Dana was telling Rachel that Megan invented the affair accusation.
While telling Megan that everyone already believed the affair happened.
Two different sisters.
Two opposite versions.
For the first time, Megan could see the architecture.
May you like
Dana did not need one lie everyone believed.
She needed separate lies that kept everyone from comparing notes.
