Chapter 11 - Rebecca Tells Her Version
Rebecca agreed to speak after Stephen’s arrest.
Her attorney was present.
Richard listened through recorded interview footage later.
Rebecca’s father had owned a small medical-supply company.
Laura’s father, Charles Bennett, acquired it twenty-five years earlier.
Rebecca claimed Charles used insider information to force the company
into bankruptcy.
Her father lost everything.
He died by suicide two years later.
Rebecca grew up believing the Bennett family had destroyed hers.
Laura did not know.
Not until shortly before her death.
Rebecca admitted she hated her cousin.
She admitted helping Stephen hide investment fraud.
She admitted searching Laura’s room.
She admitted altering Richard’s supplements with sedatives.
But she denied killing Laura.
Stephen, she claimed, acted alone.
“He panicked.”
Investigators did not accept her version without evidence.
Neither did Richard.
But one statement haunted him.
“I wanted Laura scared,” Rebecca said. “I wanted Richard to lose what my
family lost.”
Not love.
Control.
Security.
Reputation.
Then the detective asked:
“And Ethan?”
Rebecca looked down.
For the first time, she cried.
“He wasn’t supposed to see anything.”
Richard turned off the recording.
That sentence was enough.
Whatever Rebecca believed about the past, she had turned a five-year-old
May you like
child into a threat because he had seen too much.
Richard would never excuse that.
