Chapter Twenty-Three
Tris
Ainsley drives over the bridge before pulling up to my family’s lake house and puts the car in park.
I haven’t been here since the day the FBI showed up.
That was roughly a year ago, but it feels like a lifetime.
The grass on the front lawn is now overgrown, camouflaged only by the leaves that have fallen from the trees lining the driveway.
From the passenger seat, I can see the yellow tape that criss-crosses the beams on each side of the portico.
It’s not too busy in this part of town, but still, my knee bobs up and down nervously.
“You sure you want to do this? Even if you’re right and you find what you’re looking for, are you sure you’re ready to open this can of worms?” Ainsley asks softly.
What happens next... I’ve thought about it at least a hundred times on the drive here.
If we find what I’m hoping for, there’s no going back.
My father will be convicted, and it will be because of me.
Funny that a few months ago, I didn’t want to be involved, and here I am, taking a card out of Arias’s daughters’ playbook.
“I’m sure.”
“Hell yeah. Let’s go, Charlie’s Angels!” Rory bounces up and down in the backseat, wiggling her eyebrows with that lopsided grin.
Ainsley waits down the road after dropping us off, ready to drive or warn us in case anyone shows up.
While she does that, Rory and I casually sneak our way to the front door.
Luckily, we’re able to climb through the yellow tape that’s across the beams. Rory basically walks right under it.
I try not to laugh since it’s obviously not the time, but my face gives me away.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rory grumbles. “I’m short.”
I lift a shoulder and reach for the front door, only to find it locked. I slide my key in, but when I try to turn it, it doesn’t budge.
“What the hell?” I wiggle the door handle and the key, but still nothing happens.
“Did the police change the lock or something?” Rory asks, confused.
“They must have, or someone did. I don’t know, but that means we can’t get in this way. I can try the back door, but it will probably be the same thing. Maybe a window?” I back up, pulling on the strap of the bag on my shoulder as I weigh our options.
As I do that, Rory steps toward the door.
“Not so fast. Let me try something,” she says, pulling some sort of device from her pocket.
“Rory, where in the world did you get that?” I ask, as I watch her pick the lock like an expert.
“I didn’t exactly have the easiest childhood,” she starts as she switches between metal pieces on her device and slides them in the keyhole.
“Growing up, my mother was always drinking. She’d lock me out of the house all the time.
Sometimes it was by accident when she would pass out cold, and sometimes it was on purpose. ”
My heart sinks in my chest as she recounts this horrible childhood memory, her words falling as casually as a comment on the weather.
“So yeah. I eventually got really sick of having to find somewhere to go or to sleep that wasn’t my own bed, so I ordered this from some lock-breaking site and watched YouTube videos until I taught myself how never to be locked out again.”
She turns the device in her wrist, a faint click sounding from within, and the large carved wooden door opens.
“Ta-da,” she says with a smile as she straightens.
I pull her to me, hugging her tight and burying my face in her pink curls. “I hate that you ever had to learn that.”
“Yeah, but at least now I’m glad I did.” She pulls away and shrugs with a half smile. “Come on, let’s get inside.”
The house is cold, like that stale cold air that pierces through your clothes, no matter how many layers you’re wearing.
We walk over the dusty marble floors, keeping our footsteps light as we go.
Rory stops to ogle at the chandelier above us, turning as she does, like she’s trying to take everything in.
“Seriously? You used to live here?” she asks, her tone drenched in disbelief.
I laugh to myself. She’s the only one who didn’t know me before, so her surprise is refreshing in a way.
“My family lived here,” I clarify. “I stayed in one of the seven bedrooms when I was in town, but we had many houses, and I had an apartment in the city that my father paid for me to stay at mostly.”
Rory stops to stare at me, blinking slowly as she wraps her head around it.
“Jheeze, no wonder you were so angry. Going from this to that duplex must have felt like living in a shoebox in comparison.” She takes one more look around before joining me at the bottom of the stairs. “Do you miss it?”
My gaze trails across the room, seeing everything through a fresh set of eyes, and I smile.
“I used to,” I admit, letting the thought settle.
“But now? No. My duplex is the first real home I’ve ever had.
This is just Thorne Lake House.” A hollow kind of acceptance fills me like I’m finally letting go.
She nods her head, and something heavy passes behind her eyes. “I get it.”
I think about what she said outside about how she grew up, how she drove all this way just to meet a brother who didn’t even know she existed, and I realize that she really does get it.
A silent understanding passes quickly between us before I nod toward upstairs.
“This way.”
With my pulse racing, we make it to my father’s study down the hall, and I head straight for his desk.
I’m not supposed to know this secret compartment exists, but one day, when I came over unannounced, I marched into his office to find him with it open.
He played it off, acting like it was nothing before distracting me with something else, and I eventually forgot all about it, until last night.
I pull open the bottom right drawer. It looks exactly like the rest of them, but the bottom of this one is false. Its depth is shorter, but you wouldn’t notice unless you knew or measured it.
“Is that it?” Rory asks, pointing to the drawer that I’m carefully emptying.
“Yeah, it’s this one, I just have no idea how to open it.”
I remove everything, but there’s nothing that screams open here.
My stomach drops, and the nerves from earlier come back with panic that fills me. What if I can’t figure out how to open this? What if I’m wrong and there’s nothing there?
“Wait, what’s that?” She points to a small hole on the left side of the drawer.
“It looks like it’s just a hole,” I say, confused.
“No way. That’s your keyhole. Which means there’s a key somewhere around here... Hopefully.”
Dread fills me. “And if there’s not?”
“Well, we have two options. We can obliterate the drawer, but that might ruin whatever is inside. Or you can start looking for the key while I try to break it open with Lucky.”
“Lucky?” I ask, brows furrowing until she holds up her lock pick from earlier. “Of course.”
I start with all the drawers first, but come up empty-handed before moving about the room. Ainsley sends us a text, checking on us and reassuring us that the coast is clear. After five minutes of nothing, I check on Rory.
“Well?” I walk around the desk so that I can see her. “Any progress?”
“This isn’t like a regular lock. It’s one very specific key. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get in with this,” she says, frustrated. “I’m sorry.”
“Ugh,” I groan, collapsing into my father’s chair.
“Look at him.” She points to a picture of our family on his desk and shakes her head. “It’s like he wants everyone to believe he’s this great husband and father.”
I huff a laugh of agreement. That’s my father. The great pretender. Always more concerned about appearances than facts. He’s always said The truth doesn’t matter. What matters is what you can make people believe. I stare at the picture until it dawns on me.
“My father never had people in here,” I exclaim.
“So?” Rory asks slowly.
“So if you’re my father, why bother having a picture of your family on the desk?” I ask, standing up and taking hold of the photo. “I can assure you, it wasn’t because he loves us.”
I flip the tabs on the back of the frame, one by one, glancing up at Rory before flipping the last one. I pull the back off, and something falls out. The sound of metal striking the desk causes us both to jump.
“No way,” Rory says with a relieved laugh.
“Yes!” I pick up the small key and stick it into the hole. “Here goes nothing.”
Holding my breath, I turn it slowly, only exhaling when I hear the sound of a latch releasing. I press down on the bottom of the drawer, but this time, instead of nothing happening, it springs open.
“Holy shit,” Rory’s voice sounds from behind me as we both stare down at what has to be about fifteen stacks of one-hundred, one-hundred-dollar bills and a folder beneath it.
A part of me gets angry all over again at my father.
He knew this money was here the whole time he was in jail and never bothered to mention it to my mother or me.
I scoop up wrapped stacks and quickly throw them into my bag so I can gain access to the folder beneath them.
I pull it out and place the folder on the desk with shaking hands.
After a minute of doing nothing but staring, Rory places her hand on my shoulder.
“Do you want me to open it?” she asks softly.
I place my hand over hers on my shoulder and hold it tight.
“No, I have to do this myself,” I breathe.
With her support, I open the folder and begin to read.
Pages on pages of incriminating information on every page.
Wire transfer confirmations to offshore accounts, a few signed contracts hinting at bribery, notes with names and dates of suspicious “transactions”, and finally, a USB tucked inside with who knows what on it.
I’m so overwhelmed that I fall back onto the chair.
“It’s all here. Every bit of evidence is right here,” I say out loud, mostly to myself as I try to shake the shock I’m feeling.