Chapter Twenty-Two
“That’s why I’m not going to run away,” I whispered as I stepped inside the manor. “No more lies.”
The arrival of the detectives, the psychologist, and the news they brought with them pushed aside everything Courtney told me and the fears that came with them.
I made up an excuse to the guys about Courtney’s mom driving Taylor home, so she didn’t need me anymore.
We then spent the rest of the night showering a bemused but happy Lily in love and attention—letting her choose the games, show me funny videos on her phone, and then draw each of us portraits that weren’t half bad for a six-year-old.
It wasn’t until she and the guys were sleeping soundly in their beds and pullout couches did I slip out of the hotel room and into the night. That’s how I found myself in my childhood home at three in the morning.
Slowly, I moved from room to room, flicking the lights on as I went. Memories tumbled into my head one after the other.
“We can’t get sucked back into her spinning, swirling vortex of psycho,” Alex said so long ago. “Not when we’re so close to being rid of her for good.”
I thought they were talking about me, but when I confronted Rhodes, he said no. He claimed they were talking about an investor... who turned out to be my mother backed by the estate.
I stepped into the kitchen, brushing my hands across the countertop as another memory assaulted me.
“So why would you want to throw a lavish and obscenely expensive party to celebrate a marriage that’s dead?”
Alex looked in my eyes, and smirked. “Dead? It’s not dead yet, baby.”
“Hell no,” Micah breezed. “The old girl’s still got some kick in her.”
“That’s right,” Rhodes threw in, sharing a grin with his fellow brother-husbands that stood my neck hairs on end. “Can’t tap out before they call T.O.D. That would be wrong.”
“But when it is dead,” Alex whispered, his smile widening as he turned away. “That’ll really be something to celebrate. I promise you, my dear wife, that’s going to be the party you care about.”
The guys were so weird about it when I wanted to cancel the party, but again, Rhodes had an explanation ready to go. They needed our anniversary to lure big clients to the firm—get us on a healthy financial track again.
But what if not?
What if everything they told me was bullshit?
What if Detectives Kaplan and Balogun had only maybes and we believes when talking about Layton because he didn’t have a thing to do with Mrs. Prado or my mother?
What if, like Courtney suggested, there was a reason Alex flip-flopped so suddenly after the party?
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. They all had 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 me sweet 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.
Long enough for the full, horrible truth of that night to dawn on me. All the lies I’d been told. All the ways I’d been steered and maneuvered. All the smiles to my face while the knife struck my back.
I stood there... and everything became clear.
Stiff, cramping legs bent and dropped onto the floor. Carefully, I tucked the clothes back into its plastic bag, and picked up the thumb drive. I didn’t know what was on it, but I could guess it was worth killing for.
There was only one thing to do with it all now.
I hurried down the stairs, the car keys already clutched in my hand and ready to take me away from here. It’s early, but Courtney will forgive me for waking her up. I need her with me when I go to the police stat—
“Hey, babe.”
I screamed. Whirling around, the light fell on my blown eyes and terrified face as he emerged from the front sitting room.
His smirk didn’t fade even as his gaze drifted down to the items in my hand. “Now, what are you doing with that?” Alex drawled, grin widening. “I’ve been looking all over for it.”
I breathed hard, breaths coming in rapid pants. Knees shaking, hands trembling, chest constricting, I stumbled over my feet—backing away as Alex slowly moved between me and the door.
“Alex, what. The. Fuck?” My voice was no more than a strangled rasp. “What are you doing here? You scared the life out of me.”