For one second, Garrett’s face emptied of every expression.
Then he became my husband again.
“Rosalind.”
He moved toward me with his arms open.
I stepped aside.
Tobias entered behind me.
Walking.
Penelope made a sound like a breath breaking in half. Garrett stopped so abruptly that the chair behind him rolled backward.
“You’re alive,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
His eyes moved to Tobias’s legs, then to the attorney beside us, then to two investigators waiting near the door. His calculations were visible now. Not remorse. Routes.
I placed my wet wedding ring on the conference table.
“You told police you tried to save us.”
“I did.”
Tobias set the recorder beside the ring and pressed play.
Garrett’s voice filled the room.
Both of them were belted in.
The sentence was quiet. Almost bored.
Penelope covered her mouth.
Garrett stared at the recorder. “That’s not what it sounds like.”
“What does it sound like?” I asked.
He looked at me, and for the first time in three years he had no prepared version of reality to give me.
The investigators separated us after that.
The next weeks were not cinematic. They were ugly, procedural, exhausting weeks filled with statements, vehicle examinations, financial records, toxicology screens, and boxes of documents. The SUV was raised from the river. Investigators found the driver’s controls functional enough to undermine Garrett’s claim of sudden mechanical failure. More important, the wiring around my seat belt had been added by hand. Tobias’s restraint had been modified too.
The lab work confirmed the sedative in my system.
Garrett had a prescription bottle for the same medication under another name in a locked cabinet at our house.
Penelope broke first.
She asked for an attorney and then began correcting her own story. She admitted Garrett had told her the shipyard would finally be “free of resistance” after that day. She admitted she knew we were supposed to die, though she insisted she had not known exactly how until he told her where to wait. She admitted he had promised that once the estate settled, her shares would put them in control.
When investigators asked about our parents, she knew less.
Tobias knew more.
