Chapter 19 - WHAT PATRICIA LEFT BESIDE THE ROAD
Patricia requested another proffer after watching the recovered footage.
Her attorney warned that cooperation might reduce uncertainty but could not erase earlier lies. Patricia said she understood.
For the first time, she used the word hit.
She and Lauren had arranged to meet at the promise place because Lauren wanted every Family Path document Patricia possessed.
Patricia brought only part of the file.
She wanted Lauren to promise that she would protect her from prosecution.
Lauren refused.
Then Richard arrived.
He accused Lauren of stealing records that belonged to clients. Lauren held up the blue envelope and said she had already copied everything.
Richard demanded her phone.
Lauren got into her SUV and drove away.
Patricia followed because she believed one more conversation could keep the family from collapsing.
Richard followed because he wanted the evidence.
“At first I was trying to get beside her,” Patricia said. “I kept flashing my lights.”
“You were driving in heavy rain,” the prosecutor replied.
“Yes.”
“Did Lauren slow down?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“I pulled closer.”
The recovered footage supplied the part she still tried to soften.
Patricia turned toward Lauren’s lane.
Her front fender struck the SUV near the rear wheel.
“I wanted her to pull over.”
“You used a moving vehicle to force her.”
Patricia began crying.
“Yes.”
Lauren braked. Her SUV rotated partly across the roadway. Richard accelerated behind her, blocking the lane into which she might have corrected.
Patricia could not say whether his vehicle made contact.
The footage could not show it.
Lauren struck the barrier.
Patricia stopped several hundred feet away.
She saw Richard run toward the wreck.
Instead of calling emergency services, she called him.
He ordered her to leave.
“You abandoned your daughter,” Daniel said from behind the one-way glass.
Price advised him not to enter the interview room.
He did not.
Patricia admitted selling the sedan through Richard, concealing the pursuit, taking Lauren’s scarf after the funeral, and allowing Malloy to describe the phone as missing.
She had spent eight months listening to Daniel blame himself for their final argument.
Then Richard contacted her again.
He claimed Lauren’s evidence could expose Patricia as the person responsible for the crash. He warned that Claire would retrieve Sophie if Patricia did not act first.
Patricia bought the bus tickets.
Packed the suitcase.
Took the identity documents.
Covered Sophie’s mouth.
“I told myself I was getting her away from Richard told myself I was getting her away from Richard,” she said.
The prosecutor looked at her.
“You were also taking her away from the father who could expose you.”
Patricia lowered her head.
“Yes.”
When Daniel told Sophie, Dr. Cole sat beside them.
“Did Grandma kill Mom?” Sophie asked.
Daniel refused to choose a simpler word merely because his daughter was young.
“Grandma deliberately hit Mom’s car. Mom crashed after that. Richard was also following her, and other people helped hide what happened. The court will decide the exact legal responsibility.”
“Did Grandma mean for her to die?”
“She says she did not.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she wanted Mom to stop more than she cared whether stopping her was safe.”
Sophie held Lauren’s stuffed rabbit against her chest.
“Then she tried to take me because she was scared?”
“Yes.”
“Does being scared make you do anything?”
“No.”
Daniel thought of Unit 318.
“It explains why a choice can feel urgent. It does not make the choice belong to someone else.”
That night, Price called with another discovery.
The file Claire surrendered contained a laboratory report claiming Daniel was not Sophie’s biological father.
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The report was dated four months before Lauren’s death.
The laboratory listed on the page had never performed the test.
