I wonder how they would have done it.
Finnegan said they were supposed to make it look like an accident. As we inch toward the house, my gaze catches on the paddock not far away and the horses grazing inside it.
Crushed by a temperamental mare perhaps?
One thing was for certain, this house—as alluring as it may be—wasn’t my home.
It was my grave. My final resting place.
We’ve only been gone a few hours, but even now, my heart longed for the cabin and all of its simplicity.
Khalil and the sheriff park their trucks, but I don’t move and Khalil doesn’t kill the engine. I just stare straight ahead while Khalil waits silently, ready to drive us away if I give him even the smallest sign that I’m not ready to face my uncle.
After a few minutes, I sigh and the small sound from me is enough to break Khalil’s silence.
“We doing this, Goldilocks?” His glare is fixed on the house through the windshield as if he can see my uncle through the stone walls.
“Yes. I have to do this.”
He’s careful not to react and nods instead. “Okay.”
Khalil reaches under his seat and pulls out a handgun. He checks the clip before reaching behind him and shoving it in his waistband. He looks at me once he pulls his shirt over it and gives me a crooked smile once he finds me watching him. “Just in case.”
“We’re not killing my uncle, Khalil. At least not today.”
“No promises,” he says before he opens his doors and steps out.
I don’t wait for Khalil to come around and open my door because if I don’t get out of the truck now I never will, so I quickly unbuckle my belt and practically fly from the seat.
The sheriff steps out of his truck too, and none of us say a word as we make our way to the front door. The luxury carparked outside is obviously a rental, but it has my uncle written all over it. He always has to put on a show wherever we go. The reminder that I was funding his lifestyle and all of these luxuries, and that I have done so half my life, fuels me up the stairs and onto the porch.
Khalil keeps his rigid body in front of mine, keeping me from view and harm like a shield that will never bend, break, or fold. My stomach turns knowing my uncle won’t miss it and will do everything in his power to test and batter my defenses.
The three of us reach the door, and the sheriff knocks. Almost immediately, I hear footsteps approaching on the other side. I can’t see thanks to the immovable wall of flesh and muscle in front of me, but judging by the voice, it’s a woman who answers the door. She lets us inside after the sheriff asks for my uncle, and then we’re left alone in the foyer while the woman I assume is a housekeeper disappears into the house to fetch my uncle.
I take the time to look around.
There’s a formal dining room immediately to my left with a crystal chandelier above the long table that only makes me think of the antler one hanging above the table at home. The one Khalil had carved with his bare, capable hands. I huddle a little closer to his strong back and breathe in his cardamom scent with strong notes of mint.
The ceilings become higher the farther we travel inside the house until we reach the cavernous living room. I immediately drift over to the huge windows when I spot the mountains framed by the glass like a painting in a frame.
Unwilling to leave my side for even a moment, Khalil shadows me over to the window and stands close behind me, lending me his heat and his strength as he places his hands on my shoulders. I close my eyes and lean against him as he massages the tension in my muscles.
Just as I start to relax and center myself, my uncle’s voice penetrates the fog and I’m tense again.
“Ah, Sheriff,” Uncle Mars greets without an ounce of concern for why the sheriff called on him out of the blue. It’s the voice of a man who’s used to having his will enforced. Already, the crushing weight of his presence is heavy in the air, making it hard to breathe. “I wasn’t expecting you. How can I help?”
“Yes, well, we had an unexpected development regarding your niece that I thought you might want to know.”
Khalil’s hands tighten on my shoulders. Neither of us move from the window, but I doubt my uncle has missed our presence. Khalil is blocking me from view, but the massive man would be hard to miss by anyone, including someone as egocentric as Marston George.
“Is that right?” my uncle asks in a tone that doesn’t sound like someone concerned. Even in death, I’m still causing him problems. I don’t realize I’m smiling until I catch my fiendish grin in the reflection of the window. “Well, what have you found? Has her body been recovered?”
The sheriff stammers and stumbles for a response.
Meanwhile, I grab that powerful feeling of being a thorn in my uncle’s side by the reins and decide to harness it by stepping out from the protective shield of Khalil’s body.
Uncle Mar’s golden-brown skin becomes white as a sheet when he sees me. We share the same complexion and are often mistaken for being biracial by people who don’t understand that Black folks come in fifty-’leven shades. There have been many occasions—like forcing me to dye my hair blond—that my uncle has used our proximity to whiteness to get ahead, and his colorist views are just one of the many reasons I have to fight back the sneer that wants to take over my faux-calm expression.
