Laura fell apart.

“I never wanted him to kill her.”

Jason let out a bitter laugh.

“What a wonderful daughter. You only wanted her gone.”

She confessed that Brian was almost $50,000 in debt from sports gambling, loans, and credit cards.

He’d forged her signature to borrow money and had spent months being hounded by collectors.

The pickup was financed.

The new living room furniture had all been bought on credit.

Even the apartment they lived in was four months behind on rent.

Brian had promised her that selling Mrs. Helen’s house would fix everything. He convinced her that her brothers never helped anyway, and that she deserved something in return for caring for their mother.

“He kept planting things in my head,” Laura sobbed. “He made me believe Mom was destroying our lives because she wouldn’t let go of a pile of bricks.”

Daniel looked at her with a cold sadness.

“That woman spent thirty years selling food so you could go to school. She watched your kids for free. She took you in when Brian lost his job. And you turned her into a burden?”

Laura slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.

“I don’t deserve forgiveness.”