Wide.
Too big to be called anything but a mansion.
Columns rise along the front, tall and symmetrical, holding up a wraparound porch that runs the length of the house. The windows are dark, reflecting the sky instead of letting anything inside show through.
Beyond it, the land stretches out in every direction, rolling grass trimmed perfectly, sloping down toward a lake that reflects the late afternoon light. The water is calm, flat in a way that seems engineered. Trees line the far edge, thick and shadowed, the forest closing in.
I slow the car as the tires crunch over gravel.
Becky leans forward, her eyes wide. “Wow.”
I stay quiet as I pull up to the front steps, the house rising higher the closer we get.
I cut the engine and the silence sets in immediately. Suffocating.
Becky exhales beside me. “It’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“I can’t believe you were raised here.” She cranes her neck to take in all three stories through the windshield.
“Something like that.”
My hand stays on the wheel as my stomach churns.
I don’t get out.
Not yet.
Because once I step out of this car, I’m back inside it.
At least this time, I didn’t come alone.
Chapter twenty-four
Roses
Carrson
I follow Becky up the front steps, my focus fixed on the wrought-iron railing, on the key in my hand, on anything but the way her hips sway. She steps aside, and I unlock the door. It swings open smoothly, maintained too well for a house no one really lives in anymore. Cool air spills out to meet us. Slightly stale. The kind that’s beensitting in the same rooms for a long time.
I step inside.
The floor is polished dark wood, reflecting the light that slips in behind us.
Becky follows a step behind me, and when she goes silent, I’m not surprised. The house does that to people.
The entryway stretches out in every direction, hallways branching off, doorways left slightly ajar, offering glimpses of rooms beyond. Everything is clean. Ordered. Untouched. As if no one ever left. The air smells faintly of wood polish and old stone.
My hand closes around the keys in my palm, metal digging into flesh, as I walk into a living room, one of many.
Becky trails me.
“This place is…”
She doesn’t finish.
I glance back.
