She goes quiet again, her brow furrowing slightly as she tries. “I don’t remember anything like that. No fights, no threats, nothing.”
I study her for a second, then shift slightly. “Your aunt.”
She tilts her head. “What about her?”
“What was her relationship with your parents like?”
“Fine,” she says immediately. “She was around a lot after they died. Before that…I don’t know, normal, I guess.”
“Any tension?”
“No,” she replies, then pauses. “Not that I noticed.”
I nod slowly, my mind already turning.
“Anyone who would benefit from your parents being gone?” I ask next.
She frowns slightly. “That’s a weird question.”
“Answer it.”
She’s quiet for a long moment, and this time she really seems to reach for it, not brush it off. “I don’t know. My dad handled a lot of money that wasn’t his—other people’s investments. I was too young to understand any of it.” Her brow creases. “I used to hear him on the phone at night, tense, talking about accounts and clients. I didn’t know what it meant then. I still don’t, not really. But if someone lost money because of him…” She trails off, shaking her head slowly. “I never thought about it as a reason before. It’s not something a seven-year-old asks about”
“Not always.”
She’s quiet again, then shifts slightly, her expression changing. “This is frustrating.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” she says, sitting up more fully now, running a hand through her hair. “You’re asking all these questions like there’s something I’m supposed to remember, but I don’t have anything. I don’t know who would want me dead, or why.” Her voice tightens at the last part.
I sit up with her, my gaze steady as I rub slow circles across her back. “We’ll figure it out.”
“How?” she presses. “We’re just…guessing.”
“We’re narrowing it down.”
“It doesn’t feel like it,” she mutters.
Silence lingers for a second, then she exhales sharply, her frustration bubbling over. “If I had siblings, I’d at least think it was about my inheritance or something.”
Inheritance. The word hits. Sharp. Immediate.
My focus snaps to her. “What inheritance?”
She blinks, like the question catches her off guard. “What?”
“You said inheritance,” I repeat, my tone sharper now. “What inheritance?”
“Oh,” she says, like it’s nothing. “That.”
My jaw tightens slightly. “Nora.”
“What?” she says again, shrugging lightly. “It didn’t seem important.”
And there it is—the thing that doesn’t fit. A girl mentions a fortune the way she’d mention the weather. Either she’s the best liar I’ve ever met, or someone spent years downplaying it to her. I’d bet everything I have on the second one.
“Explain.”
