Chapter 43
TROY
Two Weeks Later
“We’ll tear out this entire wall,” the interior designer, Pippa, gestures to what used to be the east wing drawing room. “Open it up completely. Floor-to-ceiling windows so light floods in. It’ll be amazing for when you entertain.”
Sage looks at what Pippa is showing her on her iPad. For once, she’s all smiles, relaxed and happy, in a way I haven’t seen her in months. “Can we put the family room here, with the seating facing the lake? Laine has something similar, and I really love it.”
“Absolutely. We’ll modernize the whole thing with heated floors, vertical heating, and smart home integration. This place will be unrecognizable when we’re done.”
Unrecognizable. The word echoes in my mind. Good.
I want Sage to love living here. But she catches my eye, her brow creasing a little. “Troy. Is that okay? This is your family’s house.”
“Was. Now it’s your home,” I say simply. “Do whatever you want with it.”
Pippa looks between the two of us, smile frozen while she waits to see who wins this particular spat.
When she realizes we’re done, and Sage is the victor, again, she launches into another explanation about load-bearing walls.
I find myself drifting, my attention gravitating toward the west wing, to the room I haven’t entered since Sage came back.
My feet carry me there almost without thought, down the familiar corridor, past the portraits Sage now wants to restore for me, to the door that’s standing open.
We don’t keep it locked anymore.
The safe room looks different in daylight.
The dust is gone. Sage must have had it cleaned, but everything else remains untouched.
It wasn’t always part of the house. My father had it commissioned when his paranoia kicked in.
He wanted a secret room with an escape route to the outside, just in case.
I had it sealed a year ago when I realized the tunnels were flooded, and the escape part was useless.
But being here reminds me it’s where he would make us hide when the debtors came.
There are still my childhood books on the shelves, and my mother’s needlework hanging next to them.
On the back wall, dead center, is the fireplace where Father used to light fires and tell me stories about the Swanley legacy.
It’s not been lit since.
I’m staring at the cold hearth when I hear soft footsteps behind me.
“There you are.” Sage’s voice is gentle. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Sorry. Just needed a moment away from discussions about smart thermostats.” I turn to face her.
“You’re not working, are you? You promised.” She eyes me like she can smell an open laptop a mile away.
“I have fifty thousand emails I haven’t even looked at.”
She grins and clasps her hands. “Pippa’s a lot. But Laine swears by her. She does everything sustainable.”
“She is a lot. You owe me.” I yank her to me, my hands on her hips. She’s perfect the way she slots right into me. “Does this mean it costs more?”
Sage bites her lip in a way that makes me want to bite her too. “We can tell her to slow down if you want.”
“No. She’s fine. It’s going to be perfect, and that’s all that matters. I want you to have a house you love, not feel trapped in.”
“Even if it means tearing out walls your family built in the 1800s?”
“Especially then.” I brush a strand of dark hair from her face. “New beginnings, remember? We can’t live in a damn crypt.”
She studies my face for a long moment, then seems to come to a decision. “Actually, I’ve been wanting to show you something. But you’ve been busy with work, and I’ve been busy Christmas shopping and…”
She’s rambling now, and I let her. I can’t believe it used to annoy me when she chattered away, but now it makes me want to stop everything I’m doing and listen. She’s a distraction but a good one, a light to my dark.
“….studying the letter with Laine. Nell’s, I mean my, letter to you.”
I zone back in, and my entire body tenses at the mention of the letter. Sage has read it so many times that the paper is wearing thin. I…can’t bring myself to.
“What about it?” I try not to sound like a dick when I say it.
“There’s a code.” Her eyes are bright with excitement. “Look.”
She pulls out her phone and shows me a photo of the letter, with certain words circled. When I read just the first letters of each paragraph, my breath catches.
S-E-V-E-N S-W-A-N-S-I-L-Y
“Seven swansily,” I read it. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“No, silly. Seven Swans. I thought it might be nothing, just a coincidence, but then I remembered when I was cleaning.” She turns toward the fireplace, pulling me with her. “Look at the brickwork.”
I follow her gaze to the stone fireplace surround. I don’t know how I missed it before, but there, carved into the decorative stonework around the opening, are swans, seven of them when I count. Each swan has its neck curved in elegant arcs around the ornamental scrollwork.
How many times have I stared at this fireplace and never truly seen them?
“Seven for treasures hid up high,” Sage says softly. “I left you a message in the letter. I was telling you and probably myself, where to find it.”
My heart is pounding. “The evidence.”
“Should we try looking up there?”
I’m already moving toward the fireplace. There’s old wood still stacked inside it, kindling that’s been there for years. I step over the hearth and then reach into the dark chimney.
I feel around until something comes loose. A brick. I ease it out, and behind it is a hollow space. There’s an old fire mitt in it. I pull it out carefully and feel for what’s inside, and then I set it on the floor between us.
A burner phone and a bunch of tightly rolled documents.
Sage opens the roll, and I recognize forgeries immediately.
There are property transfers that never happened, financial records that prove Richard Lovett’s systematic destruction of my family’s assets after the fire.
The phone, of course, is dead, but if there’s proof on there that Richard paid someone to set the fire and frame me. Then it’s over.
Later, when the fire is roaring, Sage is on the rug beside it, flipping through the phone’s content, her expression growing darker.
“I’m glad that bastard is dead.” She glares at me. “Do you know what that pet food factory is for?” She shakes her head. “No, you don’t, because it’s too disturbing to even…” Her voice trails off with a shudder.
I take the phone off her and set it down, and then pull her into my arms. She’s shaking. “It’s over.”
“Not yet. We have to do something with all this.”
I look at the evidence spread around us; the proof of Richard Lovett’s crimes, of my innocence, basically, everything I’ve been searching for, and built my revenge around, right here on my damn rug.
I searched this place night and day after I bought it.
When Nell disappeared, all I knew was that the evidence was at Grayfleet.
But where, I had no clue. And the answer was here the whole time.
Sage left it for me.
“Is that what that noise was? The banging at night?” I must have said that out loud, because Sage is looking at me with a frown.
“Oh yeah, that was me. I did come in and check you were asleep before I started looking.”
Sage clenches her fist and hits me with it. “That’s for scaring the hell out of me.”
I laugh, I can’t help it.
“We should turn it over to the authorities,” I say finally. “Let the system handle it.”
Sage pulls back to look at me. “You’re going to trust the system?”
“Fuck it, I’m done. Once I show Joanna, why do I need any of this? Give it to the police.” I take her face in my hands. “I’m not going to drag you into another bloody war, and anyway, he’s dead; everyone on my list is dead.”
There’s no one left for me to kill.
She searches my face, then nods. “Okay. But make copies, and can your PA call my mother and invite her for lunch? There’s something I need to ask her.”
“Your mother?”
“I know she was never on your list, but she’s always been on mine. And I need to know how I almost died. She’s the only person left. Dad, burn his soul, wouldn’t tell me.”
“You think she knows?”
“Oh, she knows.”
“Then it’s done.”
Sage smiles, her hazel eyes searching mine. “I love it when you say it like that. Like you’re my fairy godmother, waving your magic wand for me.”
I pull her to me and taste her. She moans in my mouth, just as I hear Pippa calling for Sage. I wish I could magic away that damn interior designer so I don’t have to stop.
“How about we lock the door?”
Sage looks horrified. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not? Then I could fuck you right here, right now, to celebrate.”
Pippa calls again, sounding very close. “No,” she hisses and pushes me off her.
Ben, sensing the moment has passed, gets up and trots over to join in the fray. Sage laughs, pulling him back before he can drool on the documents.
“We should probably secure this before your dog destroys it.”
“Our dog,” I correct. “And yes, probably.”
As we’re carefully repacking everything, Sage pauses. “Troy? Those last three letters, ILY. I think…that was me telling you I Love You.”
I stop moving. “I see.”
“So, you see, I’ve always loved you…” she tails off, nervous all of a sudden.
“But I know something you don’t.” I pull her close again.
“And what’s that?”
“That I loved you first.”
She gives me a bemused look. “How do you work that one out?”
“It was the fourth or fifth time we met, and I couldn’t stop looking at your lips.
You kept asking me questions about the best way to hide a dead body, and I was so distracted, I just told you not to bother that I would come and get rid of it for you.
I was scared you’d notice and never show up again. ”
Outside, we can hear Pippa calling for us, her voice echoing through the empty halls, wanting to show us samples for the new flooring and lighting fixtures.
“Should we send her home?” Sage asks.
“Thank fuck for that, I thought you’d never ask.”
“Are you really okay with tearing this all down and building something new?”
“Absolutely, just one request.”
“What’s that?”
“That we keep the two-way mirror because I have plans for that room. I’m thinking red for the walls. Statement art pieces with saltire crosses, that sort of thing.”
My gorgeous girlfriend laughs, and the sound fills the room that’s held so many ghosts for so long.
“Come on,” she says, standing and offering me her hand. “Let’s at least go and see her off.”
I let her pull me to my feet, the evidence safely tucked under her arm like wild horses couldn’t drag it from her. Ben paces ahead of us, tail thumping, thinking it’s time for his walk.
And as we leave my childhood sanctuary, a dark piece of my old life, I’m not sad to see it go. If Sage wants to tear it down, let her. If she wants to paint the kitchen mint green and the dining room nutshell, she can go to town.
This house deserves a new lease of life, much like I do.
Seven swans.
Seven razors.
Seven years of revenge.
All of it fucking ends now.