Chapter 58
BECKHAM
“What the fuck does that mean?” I shout, grabbing the piece of paper from Vinny’s hands and reading it again.
“Oh, god,” Kai groans, putting his head back and his hand on his chest. “I feel like I’m going to fucking puke.”
“You should have protected her? Who the fuck sent this?” I snap at Vinny, realizing he’s just standing frozen, staring at where Kai’s squeezing the necklace in his hand. “Vinny?”
“What?” he whispers as he looks at me slowly, like his mind is somewhere else entirely.
Shaking my head, I glance between him and Kai, suddenly forgetting the question I was going to ask. We all just stare at each other for a moment in silence, trying to piece together what’s going on.
After a while, Kai finally speaks, his voice back to his normal calm and collected tone. “Someone’s taunting us. Someone knew about us and is using this to taunt us. But why? And who?”
Vinny shakes his head. “We need to go to Sage’s house and snoop around.”
“I think it’s still closed off as a crime scene,” Kai says.
I grin, shrugging. “So we’ll be really, really careful.”
We wait until nightfall to sneak over to Sage’s house, climbing up the side of the house and entering through her bedroom window.
The window is still unlocked, like she’d been waiting for Kaiden to sneak in, and the thought makes me sad. I know that was their thing, what made Kai feel okay with our arrangement—the moments in the night when he could take her body and claim it.
No one says anything about it, though, as we all drop down onto the carpet, and Kai slides the window closed behind us.
“Don’t turn the lights on and be quiet,” Kai says, walking to Sage’s bed and sliding his hand over the blanket.
“How are we supposed to see anything in the dark?” I ask, hating how scared I sound. The idea that maybe someone’s here, waiting in the dark to jump out at us, makes my skin crawl.
The darkness used to be our escape, our comfort and safe place, and now it’s all fucked. I would give anything to have that sense of security and safety back, but now, I’m just worried we’re going to come face to face with danger.
Kai takes off his backpack and puts it down on Sage’s bed, then he pulls out three flashlights, turning them on one by one and handing them out.
Using the flashlight, I look around Sage’s room, my eyes skating over her empty desk before I move to the closet. Her clothes still hang neatly like they’re waiting for her to return home, and my gut churns.
“This is miserable,” I whisper, running my hands over the different fabrics.
“Looks like the cops took her computer,” Vinny says, and I look at where he’s sitting at her desk. He pulls open the top drawer and rifles through it. “Nothing but old homework in here either.”
“What is it that we’re looking for?” I ask, walking to where Kai is digging through her bedside table.
“I don’t know yet,” he says, but doesn’t stop what he’s doing. He’s on a mission. “Anything that hints at who’s responsible.”
Nodding, I get on my knees and look under the bed, pulling out a box about the size of a shoe box.
Lifting the lid, I look inside and find some old photos and papers.
It almost feels wrong looking through her secret stuff like this, but I know we need to.
I know she’d want us to get to the bottom of this.
Using the flashlight, I flip through the stack of photographs in my hand, recognizing her parents from the pictures I’ve seen, and a few of Megan Gallagher from back in the day. These must be the photos she found in her grandmother’s closet all those months ago.
Setting them to the side, I look through the papers next. There are a few old birthday cards from her parents, keepsakes that probably helped her deal with the loss of them, and then I come across an unopened envelope addressed to Sage, the return address belonging to Aaron Blackmore.
“Hey, look at this.” I tap Kai on the knee with the letter. “Think we should open it?”
Kai takes it from my hand, reads it, then slides his finger under the lip of the envelope to rip it open. Pulling the letter out, he reads it aloud to all of us.
“Sage, you haven’t returned any of my phone calls, even when I manage to get your grandmother on the phone, and so I’ve been forced to put all my thoughts down the old-fashioned way. I can only hope you find the courage and forgiveness in your heart to open this letter.
I need to start by saying that I love you. I always have, and I always will. You’ll always be my favorite girl; nothing will ever change that, Sage Grace. I’m sorry things happened the way they did, but I need you to understand a few things before you completely decide you hate me forever.
I couldn’t let you stay in California. I saw what this place was doing to you and your parents, and it made me sick.
We’re Blackmores, and the only way I was going to be able to explain that to you is if you ended up there.
Your parents would’ve never allowed it if they were alive—they wanted to be Lindmans forever, live far away from anything that resembled Blackmore, but it was wrong, Sage.
We belong to Blackmore, and we were stupid, foolish kids to run away from it.
Your parents didn’t understand, Sage, but I do.
And I know that it’s you who can put the good back into the Blackmore name, bring pride to our ancestors, and restore everything our family has lived for.
I’ve known since you were a little girl, and you would kick and scream when your mother made you wear frilly pink dresses when all you wanted to do was play in the dirt with the boys.
You weren’t made to be this…California princess they turned you into.
You were made to be Blackmore’s queen, someone who’s comfortable in the dark cemetery like we all used to be.
So, please remember that, because all I’ve ever wanted was the best for you, Sage. I needed to get you back to Blackmore, and we need to find the life we were meant to live all this time.
I hope one day I can explain everything to you better, but until then, I hope Blackmore is teaching you everything it can.
I love you,
Aaron.”
My stomach knots with anxiety as Kai looks up from the piece of paper, his mouth curled up in disgust.
“What the fuck?” Kai mutters, looking from me to Vinny, then back down at the letter. “Why didn’t Sage open this?”
“She was really mad at her uncle for sending her here, making her leave UCLA. It was a betrayal to her. Maybe she just didn’t want to forgive him yet,” I suggest, even though I’m wondering if there’s another reason too.
“Now I guess it’s too late,” Vinny adds, shaking his head.
I watch Kai as he silently reads over the letter again, then he looks up at me. “Something about this just isn’t sitting right with me. Why was he so obsessed with getting her back to Blackmore? He makes it sound like he would’ve done anything to get her here.”
“Does it matter?” I ask with a shrug. “She’s dead now, and this just crosses one more person off our suspect list. Why would he kill her as soon as he got her back here?”
I grab the letter from Kai, fold it up, and slide it back into the envelope to put it back where I found it. There’s something in his eyes, though, like he’s lost in a thought that he just can’t shake.
Vinny closes the last drawer in Sage’s dresser, coming up empty, and sighs. “Let’s go downstairs. There’s nothing else in here.”
Putting the lid back on the box, I slide it under the bed and stand up. Kaiden’s staring at where his hand’s resting on Sage’s blanket, and his thumb is slowly moving over the fabric.
“Kai? You coming?” I ask, and when he looks at me, his gaze is still distant.
“Yeah, I’ll meet you down there.”
Nodding, I follow Vinny out into the hallway and down the stairs, using our flashlights to lead the way. The house doesn’t get any less scary the farther we go, and I’m walking with every nerve on edge as we creep into the kitchen.
Only a few days ago, we were sitting here with Sage’s grandmother, chatting over coffee about Sage’s funeral. It feels surreal, like a dream, maybe, and it’s hard to believe that now Ms. Spencer is gone too.
There’s a mug in the sink, with residue of Ms. Spencer’s last cup of coffee in the bottom of it. She probably put it in there on her last day, telling herself she’d wash it up in the morning.
“Do you think she’ll have a funeral?” I ask Vinny, and my voice makes him jump as he looks around the kitchen.
“I don’t know,” Vinny says. “We don’t really know any of her other family.”
“Yeah,” I sigh, feeling even sadder now. Everyone deserves an appropriate goodbye, and it isn’t fair that there’s no one left to mourn the kind woman we started to know.
Vinny and I both look around the kitchen for a little while, then the living room, both rooms coming up empty.
We still aren’t sure what we’re looking for.
Clues, blaring red flags, a flashing sign that says the name of the murderer, maybe?
I know we aren’t going to find anything; I think we’re more here so we can say we tried.
If the cops aren’t going to find something, then neither are we.
And clearly, the killer did a good job of covering their tracks.
No, we’re more likely to find a mental connection instead of a physical one. Maybe someone who’d been in Sage’s life, someone who was quietly watching in the shadows.
Kaiden joins us in the living room by the time I finally say something again. “Her grandmother said her phone burned in the fire, right?”
Kai looks at me, eyes narrowed. “Yeah.”
“And the cops took her computer,” Vinny adds, sensing where I’m going.
“What about the cloud? Could we hack into her cloud account on a different computer and access her information that way?” I ask, feeling stupid that we hadn’t thought of it before.
Both Kai and Vinny stare at me for a moment, and something clicks into place.
“Let’s go,” Kai says, turning to lead us back up the stairs so we can exit through Sage’s window again.