He had been so cold and distant up to that night, but then the next morning, he was sweet and charming—going on about how he refused to go to New York and leave me alone. Was he just trying to comfort his wife after she lost her mother... or was it more?
“Every time you questioned one of the guys, they immediately lied, shifted blame to someone else, and then confessed to a lesser sin when caught in that lie.
“They just keep pointing the blame every which way except at each other or themselves, even though the people who hated Omma most in this world were always sleeping right down the hall from her. Honestly, they likely would’ve been the main and only suspects from the start if it wasn’t for a conveniently thrown anniversary party that filled their house with cops, suspects, and witnesses.”
“They would’ve been the main and only suspects if not for that party.” My feet carried me out of the kitchen and onto the stairs. “They—all three of them—had everything to lose.”
I looked it up after Rhodes confessed to me. The statute of limitations was up for stealing the necklace, but unfortunately for the guys, they didn’t stop there. They then fenced it, laundered the money they received, and funneled back into a business built on dirty money. The clock for those crimes starts when the crime is discovered, and those were going to be discovered after Omma’s death.
My mother truly did have the means to put my sister’s husbands in jail, and she intended to do just that. Theyallhad motive to stop her. Especially when she started rapidly declining and the end drew near.
“But what would you do to stop her?” I asked the walls as I topped the stairs. “Was it enough to get rid of the evidence? Or did you need to silence her for good—sending your secrets to the grave that much sooner?”
Naturally, the walls had no answers for me, but their rooms had to. There had to be some clue or hint as to what their true endgame is, and if they achieved it that horrible night.
I started in Micah’s room. I’d been in there enough times to know he wasn’t keeping anything incriminating out in the open, so instead I searched his drawers, closet, vents—everything.
I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for, but if these men murdered my mother one night, and then crawled up my pussy the next, then one thing was for sure—they didn’t love me.
They didn’t love me. They didn’t want me. They had no interest in a future with the four of us together. There was simply no way they could convince themselves we could ride off into the sunset with my mother’s blood on their hands, so maybe I was never meant to be riding with them.
Plane tickets.I crossed the hall to Rhodes’s room.Stashed packed bags. Stacks of hundreds hidden in a shoebox. There’ll be proof that all of this was a lie.
I blew through Rhodes’s room, ransacking the place in a fit of fervor.
I pulled out the drawers, dumped them, and checked their bottoms. I turned out the pockets of every coat and pants. I checked under and behind all the furniture. I kicked the baseboards to see if any of them were loose, and hiding something behind them.
Rhodes’s bedroom turned up nothing, so I tore across to Alex’s.
The distance between this quadruple was felt from the moment their concern morphed into hostility after I walked in with a bleeding head.
Their bedrooms were in an entirely different wing from Sue’s. They cut her out of the family finances and parental decisions. Every kind thing I said or gesture I made was met with narrowed eyes. But when they changed, I believed I had something to do with it.
That my love, respect, and care for them had melted the frost around their hearts, and we were truly beginning to build a loving, safe family.
“But what if I was wrong?” I yanked out Alex’s bedside table drawer and dumped its contents on the carpet. “What if you all were keeping mesweet so that I’d ignore every glaring red flag!” I kicked over the table, looking for something taped under it like Rhodes claimed the password to his incarceration was stuck to the bottom of my mother’s file cabinet. “Does a man really trust that deleting a file is enough, or does he go a step further and silence the witness so that not even in a morphine-hazed dream can she ever admit the truth?”
I dove into Alex’s closet and tore everything from its hangers. “Does a man really swallow it all and let it go when his mother-in-law helps a conman steal from him and his parents? All to make him dependent on her so she can keep controlling his life?”
The closet in tatters, I stumbled over the clothes piles and grabbed Alex’s desk chair—slamming it against the wall housing the vent. “Was I really so desperate to get back everything I’d lost—love, motherhood, security—I ignored all the signs, so I could live in the fantasy Sue stole from me?”
How familiar this was, standing on a chair to reach this vent—the only place my secrets and true thoughts were safe... until they weren’t.
But of course it was familiar, because Alexander was sleeping in my old bedroom.
I unscrewed the vent cover and flung it over my shoulder. Sticking my hand in, I slapped around, searching for what? I didn’t know. I just had to be sure that—
Crinkle.
My fingertips brushed against something. Straining on my tiptoes, I stuck my hand in farther and grabbed it, pulling it out.
“Ah!”
The bag opened and unloaded its contents on my face. Something struck my forehead and bounced off while cloth smothered the light. I battered it away and snapped down, gaze falling on the white suit at my feet.
I recognized it immediately. It was the suit Alex wore the night of the party. I knew from the silver buttons setting the suit apart. But it wasn’t the same as I’d seen it before, because this suit, was covered in blood.
I didn’t know how long I stood there, staring at the blood-covered suit, and the tiny flash drive lying next to it. I just knew I was up on that chair long enough for my legs to ache.
