Chapter 3
Wren had gone back to her family’s house, Lukas was at work, and I was the only one home to answer the police’s questions.
The officer was tactful. “Elderly folks sometimes have issues with their minds. Is it possible Freya was suffering from some kind of brain disease? Maybe you didn’t notice, but she might’ve been confused for a while.”
I thought carefully, replaying every memory of Freya from the past three years. Finally, I shook my head with certainty. “No way. Freya had full physicals twice a year–she just had one a couple of weeks ago. She was in perfect health. No sign of dementia or anything like that.”
The officer looked disappointed, hesitating before asking, “What about Lukas’s father, Blake? I heard things weren’t going well at work–his company was planning to let him go. Maybe he couldn’t handle the shame?
“He killed himself right after hearing Freya’s final words. Maybe Freya told him she was ending her life so she wouldn’t be a burden to Lukas, and Blake, overwhelmed by guilt, followed her example?”
I had watched Freya and Blake die right in front of me, watched them change from living, breathing people to lifeless bodies. I knew, more than anyone, how determined they were in that moment.
There was no way they killed themselves for such ridiculous reasons.
The officer floated a few more theories, but I. shot them all down. Seeing he was getting nowhere, he finally wrapped up the interview.
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Chapter 3
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After all, these were clear–cut suicides, not murders. If it weren’t for the public outcry, the police wouldn’t even be wasting resources on this.
But just a few minutes after they left, Deputy Chief Cruz Lorne hurried back inside.
He looked at me, scratching his head. “Can you get a hold of Lukas?
“Your future mother–in–law, Wren… she jumped from a building.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My legs gave out and I collapsed to the floor, my breath catching in my chest like I might suffocate.
Since the police couldn’t reach Lukas, they brought me to the scene. The building was already cordoned off, and a crowd of onlookers gathered outside.
As the officers helped me through, people started snapping photos with their phones.
“That’s the future daughter–in–law of the woman who killed herself, isn’t it? I heard her boyfriend’s father and grandmother both died the day she came to visit!”
“What a curse. Some people probably think she drove them to it!”
“And that woman who jumped–her husband and mother–in–law are dead, but she still had her son and soon–to–be daughter–in–law. I heard the daughter–in–law is pregnant. How are the young couple supposed to go on?”
Their words barely registered in my head. My heart was already numb.
I knew Wren was devastated, but I never imagined she’d take her own life.
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A cop gently pulled me aside. “It’s a long fall. The body… It’s not something you want to see. Where’s Lukas?
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“Some witnesses say Wren was mumbling about a ‘secret‘ before she jumped. We think it’s the same secret that drove Blake and Freya to suicide!”
Despite the officers‘ efforts to shield me, I managed to look past the layers of white sheets and saw Wren’s shattered body.
Thirty–plus stories–there was no surviving that kind of fall. But she jumped anyway.
I couldn’t hold it together anymore. I dropped to my knees and sobbed uncontrollably.
All I’d done was visit Lukas’s family, like anyone else would, and now I’d watched them die, one after another, in the most horrific ways.
I just couldn’t understand–what kind of secret could make them so desperate to end their lives?
Cruz looked at me with sympathy. “Evie, I know you’re falling apart, but you have to pull yourself together. It’s clear now–everyone who learns the secret ends up dead.
“What is the secret? Do you know? Or does Lukas?”
