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He Framed Me for Killing My Mother, It Was His
Novelix
Completed
In my first life, my husband forced me to confess to his childhood sweetheart’s fatal hit-and-run, then locked me away. I died carrying her blame. Now I’m back on the morning of the crash, and I keep my mother home. When he announces her death, she’s upstairs calling the police. He threatens our daughter and demands another confession. This time, I make sure his own words are recorded. Then I ask him to call his mother. He identified the victim by a bracelet. I bought two identical ones. He’s been covering up his own mother’s death.
Chapters (3)
第1章
The first time my mother dies, my husband makes me take the blame.
His childhood sweetheart is the one who hits her.
Brooke has been drinking.
Daniel knows.
He threatens our daughter until I sign the statement he puts in front of me. Then he takes my phone, locks me in the spare room, and tells the world I killed my own mother.
Thirty days later, he opens the door.
By then, strangers are calling for my death.
I don't survive that life.
When I open my eyes again, it's the morning of the crash.
My mother is reaching for her coat.
Later that morning, my husband comes home and tells me she's dead.
He doesn't know she's upstairs.
Alive.
Listening.
"Rachel?"
Daniel stands in the doorway, waiting for me to move.
There's dirt on one knee of his trousers.
I remember that too.
In my first life, I thought he'd knelt beside my mother to help her.
Now I look at his hands.
"Where have you been?"
He closes the door.
"Brooke called."
My stomach tightens.
He already told me that on the phone.
An accident.
Someone hurt.
He asked where I was, then sounded relieved when I said home.
I waited until he hung up before I called my mother's phone upstairs.
She answered in a whisper.
I told her not to come down.
Not yet.
Daniel approaches me slowly.
The same careful steps.
The same lowered voice.
"Rachel, I'm so sorry."
He reaches for me.
I let his arms settle around my shoulders because I need him to keep talking.
"Your mother was on Mercer Road."
Above us, a floorboard creaks.
Daniel doesn't notice.
"Brooke didn't see her until it was too late."
I stare at the wall behind him.
I glance at the kitchen clock.
Earlier this morning, I woke at this table with the taste of blood in my mouth and a memory of the room where he kept me.
Mom was by the back door.
She'd already walked Sophie to the school bus.
"I'll get some eggs while I'm out," she said.
I knocked her bag out of her hand.
Then I caught her so tightly she cried out.
I didn't let her leave.
I took her upstairs, locked the bedroom door, and stood outside it shaking.
She asked whether Daniel had hurt me.
I couldn't explain fast enough.
Then his call came.
Now he pulls away to look at me.
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes."
"She died at the scene."
I look toward the stairs.
He follows my gaze.
"Do you want to sit down?"
"No."
He sighs as though I'm making something difficult.
"Brooke's devastated."
I hear the sentence twice.
Once now.
Once from the life I already lived.
"She's home," he continues. "I told her to lie down. She was shaking so badly she could barely hold her phone."
"You took her home?"
"She couldn't stay there."
"What about the person she hit?"
He pauses.
Then his expression softens again.
"Your mother, Rachel."
He says it gently.
Correcting me.
"You mean your mother."
My phone is in my pocket.
Before he arrived, I sent Mom a message.
Call the police. Tell them Daniel is coming home after helping someone cover up a fatal crash.
Tell them I'm afraid he'll hurt us. Stay upstairs with your phone.
She replied:
I'm calling. Stay away from him if you can.
Daniel looks toward the kitchen counter.
There's an unopened carton of milk beside the bowl Mom used for Sophie's breakfast.
"Have you eaten?"
"Did anyone call an ambulance?"
His eyes return to mine.
"It wouldn't have helped."
"That isn't what I asked."
"Rachel."
"Did you call the police?"
He releases my shoulders.
"We need to talk about that."
He reaches into his jacket.
The papers are folded into thirds.
I know the sound they make when he opens them.
In my first life, I signed with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking.
He smooths the pages against the table.
"Brooke has a lot to lose."
I look at the first line.
Statement of Events.
My name is already printed at the top.
第2章
"I wasn't there."
Daniel taps the paper.
"I know."
"Then why is this written as if I saw it?"
"It explains what happened."
I read the first paragraph.
It says my mother stepped into the road without looking.
It says Brooke was driving carefully.
It says I do not believe Brooke was responsible.
"You've already decided what I'm going to say."
"I'm trying to keep this from getting worse."
"For who?"
His mouth tightens.
"Her father saved my life."
I remember this part.
The river.
The summer Daniel was twelve.
The promise he made years later at the man's hospital bed.
Take care of my little girl.
Daniel has used those words to excuse missed birthdays, canceled plans, and money disappearing from our account.
Today, he wants them to excuse a death.
"You know what I owe that family," he says.
"My mother isn't your debt to pay."
He flinches.
For a moment, I think the words have reached him.
Then he picks up a pen.
"No one is asking you to pay anything."
I look at the paper.
"My name is on it."
"You're my wife."
"And she's your wife's mother."
He puts the pen down too hard.
"It was an accident."
"Was Brooke drinking?"
His face changes.
That's all the answer I need.
"She had a rough night," he says.
"Was she drinking?"
"She didn't mean to hurt anyone."
I step away from the table.
He catches my arm.
"Don't start."
I pull free and reach into my pocket.
He sees the phone.
"Who are you calling?"
I press the emergency number.
Daniel knocks it from my hand before I can hear anyone answer.
It strikes the floor near the refrigerator.
I bend for it.
He shoves me aside.
My hip hits the cabinet.
The pain is immediate.
Real.
This isn't a dream.
He picks up the phone, checks the screen, and switches it off.
"You don't know what you're doing."
"I'm calling for help."
"You're trying to destroy her."
I look up at him.
"Someone is dead."
He runs a hand through his hair.
For the first time since he came in, the careful grieving-husband expression slips.
Underneath, he's irritated.
Tired.
Angry that I won't make this easier.
"Listen to me. I've already taken care of things."
"What things?"
"The car. The footage."
I keep my eyes on his face.
"What happened to the person she hit?"
He glances toward the window.
"Not here."
"What does that mean?"
"It means there's nothing you can do by making a scene."
Upstairs, something shifts.
Daniel looks toward the ceiling.
My heart slams against my ribs.
"How do you know it was my mother?"
He blinks.
"What?"
"How did you identify her?"
"Rachel, don't do this to yourself."
"Did you see her face?"
He doesn't answer.
I take a step closer.
"Daniel."
"It was bad."
His voice drops.
"The impact. I couldn't—"
He stops.
Then he reaches for the explanation that made him so certain.
"She had the bracelet."
I go still.
"What bracelet?"
"The silver one. With the little leaves."
My fingers curl against the edge of the counter.
"I bought that last year."
"I know."
"You saw it?"
"Yes."
He sounds relieved now.
As though we have finally agreed on something.
"That's how I knew."
Last Mother's Day, I ordered two silver bracelets from the same jeweler.
The same pattern.
The same clasp.
One for my mother.
One for his.
Margaret cried when she opened hers.
She said no one had bought her jewelry in years.
Daniel was on his phone.
I had to say his name twice before he looked up.
Now he pushes the pen toward me.
"Please, Rachel. Sign."
I look at the paper.
Then at him.
"Have you called your mother today?"
第3章
Daniel frowns.
"What does my mother have to do with this?"
"Call her."
"Rachel."
"Please."
His phone rings before he can answer.
Brooke.
He turns away from me.
"What is it?"
Her voice is loud enough to carry across the kitchen.
"Someone sent me a picture."
Daniel straightens.
"What picture?"
"Us. On Mercer Road. Beside her."
He lowers his voice.
"Send it."
A moment passes.
I watch his face as he opens the message.
"They said they saw the crash," Brooke says. "They're asking why I left. What if they post it?"
"Don't answer."
"What if they already called someone?"
"Brooke. Listen to me."
He looks at me.
Then away.
"I'll handle it."
His mother lives in a duplex less than a mile from us.
She walks Mercer Road to the shops.
So does mine.
Same route.
Same bracelet.
I move toward the stairs while he's looking at his screen.
He catches the movement.
"Where are you going?"
"To get something."
"What?"
"My mother's bracelet."
He stares.
I stop at the foot of the stairs.
"You said you identified her by it. I bought two."
For several seconds, he says nothing.
Then he laughs once.
It's an ugly sound.
"You're not doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Dragging my mother into this because you're angry."
"I'm asking you to call her."
"She's fine."
"How do you know?"
"Because she wasn't the one on the road."
"You didn't recognize the face."
He comes toward me.
I stay where I am.
"Rachel. Stop."
"There were two bracelets."
"Enough."
He grips my arm and turns me away from the stairs.
The narrow door beneath them comes into view.
The spare room.
In my first life, he took out the lamp before he locked it.
I slept against that door until I stopped expecting footsteps.
My body reacts before I can think.
I pull back.
"No."
Daniel looks at me.
Then at the door.
Something cold settles into his expression.
"Then cooperate."
His phone rings again.
He answers without letting go of my arm.
"I said I'd handle it."
Brooke is crying now.
"I can't lose everything. My sponsors—Daniel, people are going to think I'm a murderer."
"No one can see who's driving in that picture."
I turn toward him.
He stops speaking.
The idea arrives on his face before he says it aloud.
I know that look.
I watched him wear it once already.
"Stay off your phone," he tells her. "Let me call you back."
He ends the call.
Then he releases me.
"Rachel."
"No."
"You haven't heard me."
"I have."
He ignores that.
"The car was borrowed. Plenty of people have access to it."
"I wasn't driving."
"I know. But no one else has to."
I press my hand against the wall.
He speaks faster.
A plan becoming more reasonable to him because he's saying it out loud.
"You're her daughter. People will understand you panicked."
"People will understand I killed my mother?"
"I'll explain that you didn't mean to. We'll get a lawyer."
"We?"
"I won't abandon you."
I nearly choke.
In the first life, I heard him say exactly that through the locked door.
He left a bottle of water on the floor.
Then he went to Brooke.
"You'll make a video," he says. "Just explain what happened. Once that's out there, she can say the photograph was taken afterward."
"And when the witness tells the truth?"
"I was there too."
There it is.
He isn't asking me to save Brooke.
He's telling me he will help her destroy me.
I look toward the stairs again.
Mom knows what she's hearing.
She knows what to do.
I need time.
Daniel's phone vibrates.
He checks it.
His expression changes.
"What did you tell the school?"
My stomach drops.
Before he arrived, I emailed Sophie's school office.
Keep her there. Do not send her home with anyone until you've spoken to me.
I thought I had more time.
Daniel turns the screen toward me.
The office has copied him on a message asking for clarification.
"You're trying to take my daughter?"
"I'm trying to keep her safe."
"From me?"
I don't answer.
He makes a call.
His friend Mark answers.
Mark sometimes helps with school pickup when Daniel works late.
"Can you bring Sophie home?" Daniel says. "Family emergency. I'll call the office."
"Daniel, don't."
He looks at me while he speaks.
"Bring her straight here."