Chapter 197: Becoming Sherlock Holmes
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The silence stretched after Rachel’s question, almost like the room was closing in on us. The radiator clanged loudly, and the old woman in the wheelchair seemed to watch us more intently.
Adrien placed his almost-empty glass on the coffee table with a soft thud and leaned in, elbows on his knees, the journal sitting heavy in his lap like it held the weight of a trial.
"Rachel," he began, his voice quiet but firm, "a few months back, we found Mom’s journal hidden away at the lake house in Clearwater. She wrote in it at least every month or so during her last year."
He carefully opened it, the pages crackling slightly. "She talked about you a lot, called you her best friend and the only person she could open up to when things got tough. She wrote about her fears, secrets she felt she couldn’t share with anyone else... and how she needed answers to a lot of things happening around her."
Rachel furrowed her brow, confusion deepening the lines on her face. She tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear, her fingers shaking a bit.
"Answers?" she repeated, her voice just above the hum of the radiator. "What kind of answers are you looking for, sweetheart?"
I glanced at Adrien, noticed the muscle in his jaw twitching, and jumped in before the moment slipped away.
"We...um, don’t think the car accident was actually an accident," I said, keeping my tone soft even though the words felt heavy and perilous in the small space. "We think... someone else might’ve been involved."
Rachel’s face went pale, all color draining away. Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, but for several long seconds, no words came out. She looked between me and Adrien, as if waiting for one of us to laugh and reveal it was all a prank. But when we didn’t, she pressed a hand to her chest, checking if her heart was still beating.
Adrien continued, his voice softer now, almost desperate. "There are entries about her wanting to leave to take me somewhere safe. She wrote about moving money, hiding important papers, meeting someone who was supposed to help her. And on the night she died, she wasn’t just running errands in the city like the police claimed. She was probably headed out of Willow Haven as a whole...almost as if she was being chased or something. We think she was either trying to escape someone... or was rushing toward something she felt she needed to protect."
He paused, letting the gravity of his words sink in. Outside, the snow tapped insistently against the window, the only noise in the room.
"We came all the way from Willow Haven," I added gently, " because we’re hoping you can help us find the right path. Since you were the person she trusted most. We figured you might know something...anything, to help us solve this puzzle."