Chapter 4

"The handwriting, Detective," I said, my voice low and urgent as Ramirez cuffed me, "Look at the suicide note, then look at the birthday card Lily gave me. The way 'Daddy' is written. It's different."

Ramirez gave me a sharp look but took the card I offered. He was sharp, I could see it.

He protected me from the worst of the mob, got me into the car.

At the station, the questions were relentless. But I stuck to my story. I didn't kill Lily.

Then I dropped the bombshell.

"It was my father, Richard Miller. He did it."

Ramirez stared at me. "Your father? Richard Miller, the philanthropist? He's supposedly gravely ill, in a clinic in Switzerland."

"That's what they want you to think," I said. "He has motive, access."

It was a lie, a desperate tactic. My father was kind, gentle. But he was also frail. The shock of Lily's death, my arrest... it killed him last time. This time, I needed to shield him, and this accusation would confuse Carol and Izzy, make them think I was flailing, unhinged.

"My father's health is precarious, Detective," I explained later, when we were alone. "If he hears about this, about Lily, about me being accused... he won't survive. Carol and Izzy know this. They used it last time."

I laid out the complexities, the past life, the frame-up, my rebirth, Izzy's affair with Carol's son, Kyle. It sounded insane, I knew.

But the discrepancy in the handwriting on the note, something so small, nagged at him.

"This is a wild story, Miller," Ramirez said, rubbing his temples. "But that note... it's bothering me."

"Help me, Detective. Help me find the truth, and protect my father."

He was silent for a long moment. "Okay, Miller. Let's say I play along, for now. What's your plan?"

We devised it together, a risky gambit.

He made the call. "Mr. Miller? Richard Miller? This is Detective Ramirez, Portland PD. We need to speak with you regarding an urgent family matter."

I listened, my heart pounding, as Ramirez spoke to my father. I'd already made a cryptic call to Dad's private number before the party, hinting at danger, telling him to trust only me, to be ready for a shock.

Ramirez hung up. "He's on his way back. Chartered a private jet. He sounded... surprisingly strong."

Relief, sharp and fierce. Phase one.

Carol and Izzy were brought in for questioning. They played their roles perfectly. Grieving mother, shocked step-grandmother.

Izzy even produced the "bruises" on her arm, supposedly from me. "He's been violent before," she whispered to Ramirez.

Carol wrung her hands. "I never thought Ethan could be capable of this... but Richard... Richard adored Lily. This is madness."

Ramirez looked at the "suicide note" again, then at Lily's card. "Mrs. Vance, Mrs. Miller, you claim Ethan Miller wrote this note to frame himself after killing his daughter, or that Lily wrote it under duress?"

"Lily wrote it," Izzy insisted, "He forced her!"

"Then why," Ramirez asked softly, "is the 'Daddy' here so different from the 'Daddy' on this birthday card she made him this morning?"

Izzy and Carol exchanged a quick, panicked glance.

"She was upset, scared! Her handwriting would be shaky!" Carol blustered.

"Perhaps," Ramirez said. "We'll let the experts decide."