At midnight, I climbed the stairs. I was still wearing the gold dress. My feet ached. My mind was numb.
I opened the door to my bedroom.
Rachel was sitting on my bed, still in her white wedding dress.
She looked up when I entered.
“Can we talk?” she whispered.
I sat down beside her.
“Tomorrow,” I said. “Tonight we just sit.”
So we did.
We sat side by side on the edge of my bed—mother and daughter in our gold and white dresses—and said nothing.
Outside, the Morrison estate was silent. The tent was empty. The guests were gone. The evidence was locked away. Derek and Dr. Caldwell were in custody, and I had forty-seven million reasons to be grateful.
But all I felt was tired.
Sunday morning came in gray and cold. I woke at dawn, still wearing the gold dress.
Rachel was asleep in the chair beside my bed, her wedding dress wrinkled and stained with grass. I covered her with a blanket, then went downstairs.
At 8:00, I heard footsteps on the stairs.
Rachel appeared in the doorway wearing borrowed jeans and a T-shirt from her old room. Her hair was pulled back. Her eyes were red.
We sat in the study with coffee between us.
“Tell me everything,” I said. “From the beginning.”
She took a breath.
“I met Derek in 2022. He was charming, ambitious. He made me feel seen.”
I nodded.
“He started isolating me. He’d say things like, ‘Your mother doesn’t value you. You’re doing all the work. She should retire.’”
“When did it escalate?”
“2023,” she said. “He proposed. And he started talking about succession planning. He said you were working too hard—that it was time for me to take over.”
“And Caldwell?”
“Early 2024,” Rachel said. “Derek started raising concerns. He said Caldwell was worried about you. He gave me examples. He said you repeated yourself. That you forgot George’s birthday.”
I set down my coffee.
“In March,” she continued, “Derek asked me to sign incorporation documents for Cascade Holdings. He said it was estate planning. Tax purposes.”
“Go on.”
“In April, he told me Caldwell recommended temporary oversight to protect you.”
“And in May…” Rachel’s voice cracked. “I overheard a phone call. Derek said once the old woman’s signs were clear…”
I flinched.
“I confronted him,” she said. “He said he was protecting you. He asked if I wanted you to lose everything.”
“What did you say?”
“I tried to pull out. In June, I told him I couldn’t do it, and he said it was too late. That you’d find out I signed the Cascade documents, that you’d never forgive me. That I’d lose you either way.”
Her hands shook. “I felt trapped.”
I looked at her carefully.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I was ashamed,” she said. “I’d already signed things. And part of me thought maybe he was right. Maybe you were tired. Maybe I was helping you.”
“And the wedding?”
“I thought if I went through with it, everything would be okay. Derek said after the wedding, he’d drop all of this.”
She looked up.
“He lied.”
At 10:00, Rosa knocked on the door.
She stepped inside holding a piece of paper.
“Mrs. Catherine,” she said, voice trembling, “I need to tell you this.”
She handed me the note.
It was handwritten, dated June 8th, 2024—the day of the conspiracy at the boutique.
“I was cleaning Derek’s office,” Rosa said quietly. “I found this on his desk. I didn’t understand it.”
The note read:
