Aunt Carla's Warning
Chapter 03 - Aunt Carla's Warning
Carla, Harrison's older sister, took one look at her brother's face when he dropped Chloe off that evening and understood immediately that something considerably more serious than a sudden cold had prompted this unannounced visit.
"What's actually going on," she asked, once Chloe had gone upstairs to the guest room, exhausted from the day's tension.
Harrison told her everything, the locket, the photograph, Meredith's calm voice from downstairs, the doorknob turning slowly in the silence afterward.
Carla's expression darkened considerably as she listened, an old, unspoken suspicion clearly resurfacing.
"I never trusted her," she admitted. "I never had anything concrete to point to, just a feeling every time she talked about her past. Vague answers. Details that shifted slightly depending on who was asking."
"You never told me that," Harrison said.
"You were happy," Carla said. "Genuinely happy, for the first time since Elise died. I didn't want to be the sister who ruins that with a feeling I couldn't back up with anything real. I regret that now, clearly."
"You have a feeling isn't nothing," Harrison said. "Especially now."
Carla considered carefully before speaking again. "Did Elise ever mention a friend named Meredith. Anyone from before you two met, maybe from college, or her hometown."
Harrison thought hard, working back through years of memory. "She mentioned a friend once or twice, someone from her early twenties, before she moved to the city. She never used a full name in front of me, as far as I remember. Just called her 'my old friend' a few times, always with a strange tone I never fully understood."
"Do you think it's the same person," Carla asked.
"I think I need to find out," Harrison said. "Properly, with someone who actually knows how to investigate this instead of just guessing."
Carla nodded, already reaching for her phone. "I know someone. A private investigator I used once for a business matter years ago. Discreet, thorough, and completely outside your current social circle. I think you need exactly that kind of distance right now."
Harrison accepted the recommendation gratefully, understanding he needed considerably more than his own suspicion to move forward safely, especially with his daughter's safety now hanging in the balance of whatever truth actually connected Meredith to his late wife.
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"I need to go back tonight," he said. "Act normal. Buy myself time to actually investigate this properly, without alerting her that anything's wrong."
"Be careful," Carla said, gripping his arm. "If she's capable of lying this completely for over a year, I don't think you can predict what else she might be capable of."
