Chapter 2: The Weight of the Past
Grace sat on the edge of the guest bed, gently reaching out to take Katherine’s icy hands. Despite everything Caleb had just revealed, seeing Katherine in this state broke Grace's heart. "Katherine, please. Tell me the truth. My son is falling apart, and you are terrified in your own wedding dress. What happened twelve years ago?"
Katherine drew a long, shaky breath, staring down at her intertwined fingers. "Caleb found the diary, didn't he? He found out I was 'Kit.' I knew the moment we stepped into the bedroom tonight. He locked the door, turned around, and his face... it wasn't the man I loved. He threw the diary page copies at my feet and told me that my entire life with him was a calculated punishment. He told me he tracked me down in Richmond, pretended to fall in love with me, and waited until the day I legally bound my life to his just so he could strip everything away from me, ruin my reputation, and leave me with nothing, just like he thinks I did to Beatrice."
"Did you?" Robert asked sternly from the doorway, his arms crossed. "Did you bully that poor girl into her grave?"
"No!" Katherine cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks. "It’s true that I was competitive. We both were. We were seventeen, desperate to get out of our small towns, desperate for that one Juilliard scholarship. I was envious of Beatrice’s talent, and she was envious of my technical skill. We fought. We said horrible, cruel things to each other. I did expose her secret—I told the camp counselors that she was using someone else’s early sketches in her portfolio because she was under so much pressure from her parents. It was a horrible, petty thing to do. The camp disqualified her, and the scholarship went to me."
She looked directly into Grace's eyes, her gaze desperate for belief. "But I didn't know she would do what she did. When I heard the news a week later, I collapsed. I couldn't take the scholarship. I gave it up, changed my name, moved across the state, and swore I would never touch a paintbrush again. I spent the last twelve years trying to atone by being a good person, by helping others. When I met Caleb in Richmond, I had no idea he was Beatrice’s boyfriend from back then. He used a different last name on his professional profiles—his stepfather's name. I thought it was fate. I thought the universe was finally giving me a chance at true happiness."
"So you didn't know?" Grace asked, her mind spinning.
"I loved him, Grace! I still love him!" Katherine sobbed, burying her face in her hands. "But tonight, he told me that every kiss, every 'I love you,' every plan for our future house was a lie. He whispered in my ear that he was going to make sure everyone in our professional and personal circles knew I was a killer. He wanted to watch me break. The look in his eyes... it was pure hatred."
Grace stood up, feeling a profound sense of failure as a mother. She had raised Caleb to be just, but this wasn't justice—it was a twisted, toxic obsession. He had poisoned his own soul to exact revenge on a woman who had spent over a decade punishing herself in silence.
May you like
Suddenly, a loud crash echoed from the master bedroom.
Frank rushed out first, followed closely by Robert and Grace. They burst into the room to find Caleb’s desk overturned, papers scattered everywhere. But Caleb was gone. The window was wide open, the sheer curtains fluttering in the midnight breeze. On the floor lay a single note written in Caleb’s frantic handwriting: It ends where it started. She needs to see the final price.
