Chapter 2 - The Blood-Stained LegacyThe execution was stayed within three hours. A temporary injunction had been signed by a federal judge, but staying an execution wasn't the same as proving innocence. The prosecutor who had built his entire career on sending my mother to death row, Prosecutor Vance, was not going to let his crown jewel case crumble over the word of a minor.
By midnight, Ethan and I were sitting in a cold, sterile interrogation room at the county precinct. Marcus was being held downstairs in a separate cell, though his lawyers were already swarming the building.
"Ava, you need to understand something," Lead Detective Rayner said, leaning across the wooden table. "Your brother was eight years old at the time of the murder. Memory at that age, especially under severe trauma, is notoriously unreliable. We have your mother's fingerprints on the hunting knife. We have your father’s blood on her silk robe."
"Then explain why my uncle was in our house that night!" I demanded, my hands clenching into tight fists on the table.
"Ethan," Detective Rayner turned gently to my brother. "Can you tell me exactly what you saw six years ago? Step by step."
Ethan wiped his nose with his sleeve, his eyes wide and bloodshot. "I couldn't sleep that night. I went downstairs to get water. I heard Dad arguing with someone in his study. It wasn't Mom. It was Uncle Marcus. They were fighting about... about money and a company."
"What company?" I asked, looking at Ethan in shock. "Dad was an accountant."
" Dad wasn't just an accountant, Ava," Ethan whispered, looking up at me with terrifying clarity. "He found out Uncle Marcus was using his firm to wash money for someone else. I heard Uncle Marcus say, 'If you go to the police, you ruin us both.' Then I heard a heavy thump."
Ethan began to shake violently. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close.
"I hid behind the hallway curtain," Ethan continued through quiet tears. "Uncle Marcus walked out of the study holding Dad's hunting knife. He went into Mom and Dad's bedroom. Mom was passed out... because Uncle Marcus had put something in her tea earlier that night. I saw him take her hand, press her fingers onto the handle, and then drop the knife under the bed. Then he dragged Dad's body slightly to brush the sleeve of Mom's robe against his chest."
Detective Rayner’s pen stopped moving. The silence in the interrogation room was suffocating.
"And why didn't you say anything, Ethan?" Rayner asked quietly.
"Because after he did it," Ethan sobbed, hiding his face in my sweater, "he walked out into the hallway, pulled me out from behind the curtain, and held the bloody knife to my throat. He told me if I ever said a word, he would kill Ava first, then me, and make sure Mom died in the electric chair. He said he was the only thing keeping Ava alive."
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through my veins. For six years, my little brother had been carrying the weight of the universe on his tiny shoulders to keep me alive. And I had spent those six years playing the dutiful, grieving daughter to his tormentor.
Before Detective Rayner could speak, the door burst open. Prosecutor Vance stepped in, holding a manila folder.
"Detective, a word. Now," Vance ordered cold-faced.
I followed them to the doorway, catching the door before it clicked shut.
"We have a problem," Vance whispered loudly to Rayner in the hallway, unaware I was listening. "We just searched Marcus's primary vehicle. We didn't find weapon evidence, but we found a hidden safe in his trunk. It contained offshore account statements transferred on the exact date of the murder. But that's not the worst part."
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"What is it?" Rayner asked.
"The money didn't belong to Marcus," Vance replied, his voice trembling slightly. "The money was being paid to him monthly... by Arthur Vance. My father."
