Chapter 4: What Rachel Never Said Out Loud
Rachel was awake when I got back to her room.
Mason was asleep in the chair beside her bed, his head tipped sideways, one hand still loosely holding the edge of her blanket even in sleep.
Rachel was watching him with the kind of expression that doesn't have a name — something between grief and gratitude and a love so heavy it looked like it hurt.
She heard me come in and looked up.
Her lip had been treated.
There was bruising along her left cheekbone that had darkened overnight.
I closed the door quietly and pulled a chair to the other side of her bed.
"I need to talk to you about Gerald Watts," I said.
The color left her face.
Not slowly.
All at once.
"Emily—"
"I'm not here as a cop.
I'm here as your sister." I kept my voice low so Mason wouldn't stir.
"I met a woman named Donna this morning.
She told me what you saw on Mercer Street four years ago."
Rachel turned her face toward the window.
Her throat moved.
"You should have told me," I said.
"I know."
"Rachel.
You should have told me the night it happened."
"I know." Her voice cracked on the second one.
"I was scared.
I didn't know who he was yet.
And then he showed up and he was so — he was calm.
He was kind.
He brought me flowers and he said he just wanted to talk, that it was a misunderstanding, that the man had started it." She pressed her lips together.
"And I was twenty-nine and I was lonely and I made the worst decision of my life."
"You didn't make a decision.
He manipulated you."
"I let him."
"Rachel—"
"I let him, Emily." She turned back from the window and her eyes were wet.
"I knew something was wrong by the third month.
I knew.
But by then Mason was attached to him and Travis knew everything about our lives and I told myself it would get better." She looked at her son's sleeping face.
"I told myself that every single month for three years."
I reached across the bed and put my hand over hers.
She didn't pull away.
"The recording Mason made," I said carefully.
"Did you know he was doing it?"
Rachel shook her head.
"I didn't even know he had figured out how to use that function on his watch." A sound came out of her that was almost a laugh, except it wasn't.
"He's eight years old and he thought of something I never did."
"He's your son," I said.
"He learned to protect the people he loves from watching you do it."
She pressed her free hand over her mouth.
Her shoulders shook once, then twice.
Mason shifted in his chair.
His eyes opened halfway, found his mother's face, and closed again.
His hand tightened on the blanket.
I waited until Rachel steadied.
"I need you to give a formal statement," I said.
"About Mercer Street.
About everything."
"Travis will—"
"Travis is in custody.
And I have documents now that connect him to Gerald Watts's death in ways that go beyond what you witnessed." I squeezed her hand.
"You are not the only wall holding this up anymore.
But I need you on record."
She was quiet for a long moment.
"Will Mason have to testify?"
"Not if I can help it.
The recording may be enough on its own.
But that's not my call alone."
Rachel looked at her son again.
At the cracked smartwatch still on his small wrist.
"He carried that thing everywhere," she said softly.
"Travis hated it.
Said it was a cheap piece of junk.
Tried to throw it away twice." She exhaled.
"Mason always found it."
I stood up and leaned over and pressed my lips to the top of her head the way our mother used to do when we were small.
"I'll be back this afternoon," I said.
"Don't talk to anyone about Mercer Street before I get back.
Not a nurse, not a social worker, nobody."
"Okay."
I was almost at the door when she said my name.
I turned.
"The woman you met this morning," Rachel said.
"Donna.
Is she all right?"
"She seemed like someone who'd been waiting a long time to stop being afraid."
Rachel nodded slowly.
"Tell her I'm sorry.
For not being braver sooner."
I left the room and stood in the corridor for a moment with my back against the wall.
Then my phone rang.
It was Sergeant Collins.
May you like
"Emily," he said.
"Travis made bail two hours ago."
