Chapter 8
Thomas looked at Mark like he had just spoken another language.
“What?”
Mark pointed at the screen.
“Forty-eight Hawthorne Street.”
“Yes.”
“I know the address.”
“How?”
Mark swallowed.
“Kevin mentioned it once.”
Rebecca stared at him.
“Why were you talking to Kevin?”
Mark looked uncomfortable.
“Because he worked for me.”
My head snapped toward him.
“What?”
Rebecca looked furious again.
“You said you barely knew him.”
“I said nothing about Kevin.”
“You let us believe—”
“I hired him twelve years ago.”
Thomas stepped closer.
“To do what?”
Mark looked at me.
“Find Maya.”
I felt the room tilt.
“You hired Kevin to find me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Sarah died.”
Everyone went silent.
Mark continued.
“I learned about her death about two weeks afterward.”
“How?”
“A private investigator had been monitoring the address.”
I stared at him.
“You were monitoring my mother?”
“After she called me, yes.”
“Without telling her.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to throw something.
“So when she died, you knew I was alone.”
Mark nodded.
“I sent Kevin.”
My throat tightened.
“What was he supposed to do?”
“Make sure you were safe.”
I laughed.
“He was what, twenty-five?”
“Twenty-six.”
“And instead of calling my family, you sent some stranger to watch me?”
“I didn’t trust Thomas.”
Thomas shouted, “You had no right!”
Mark snapped back.
“And you think I didn’t know what you would do? You would have taken control of her life within a day.”
Thomas stopped.
Because he knew there was some truth in it.
I looked at Mark.
“How long did Kevin watch me?”
“About three months.”
I felt sick.
“Then what?”
“He said you were staying with a friend’s family. You were enrolled in school. You were working.”
“So you decided I was fine.”
“I decided disrupting your life might be worse.”
My hands curled into fists.
“Every man in this story keeps making decisions for women and calling it protection.”
No one answered.
Rebecca looked at me.
For once, there was no defensiveness in her face.
“You’re right.”
Thomas looked down.
“So does Daniel.”
Daniel nodded.
Mark did too.
Emma crossed her arms.
“Good. Maybe write it down.”
I almost smiled.
Then Thomas’s expression hardened.
“Kevin owns the house?”
Mark nodded.
“He bought it eight years ago.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca frowned.
“You never thought that was strange?”
“I didn’t know it was the Collins house.”
“But you knew the address.”
“Not its history.”
Thomas turned to me.
“We need to go.”
I stared at him.
“To the house?”
“Yes.”
Mark shook his head.
“No.”
Thomas glared.
Mark pointed at the computer.
“If Alan knows about the locket, he knows about the evidence. If Kevin works with Alan and owns that house, they may be waiting.”
Daniel said, “He’s right.”
Thomas snapped, “Stop agreeing with him.”
Daniel shrugged.
“I’m enjoying it.”
Rebecca gave him a look.
“This is not funny.”
“No. It isn’t.”
His face became serious.
“If Sarah hid originals there, Alan has probably searched the place.”
I looked at the address.
“Maybe he didn’t find them.”
“Maybe.”
Emma said, “Mom, I want to go home.”
Rebecca’s face softened.
“Yes.”
Mark stepped forward.
“I’ll take you.”
“No.”
Emma’s answer was immediate.
Mark froze.
“I’ll call a car,” Rebecca said.
Thomas shook his head.
“No. Security takes you both.”
Rebecca opened her mouth to argue.
Then looked at Emma.
“Fine.”
She turned to me.
“Are you going to the house?”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked torn.
Then Emma squeezed her hand.
“Go.”
Rebecca blinked.
“What?”
“Go with Maya.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’ll be with security.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Emma looked at Thomas.
“Grandpa?”
The word hit him.
His face softened instantly.
“Yes?”
“Can your security take me somewhere safe?”
“Yes.”
“Somewhere Dad doesn’t know?”
Mark flinched.
Thomas nodded.
“Yes.”
Emma looked at Rebecca.
“Then go.”
Rebecca stared at her daughter.
“Why?”
Emma swallowed.
“Because if Aunt Sarah left something, you deserve to know too.”
Rebecca began crying again.
She hugged Emma.
Hard.
Emma hugged her back.
Mark watched.
He looked like a man realizing the cost of every lie all at once.
Twenty minutes later, Emma left with two security guards.
Mark stayed.
Thomas did not want him to.
I did.
“You know Kevin,” I said.
“Somewhat.”
“Then you come.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
That was my answer to almost everything that night.
Daniel held up the flash drive.
“I’m coming too.”
Thomas rolled his eyes.
“Of course you are.”
We took two cars.
I rode with Rebecca.
I didn’t know why.
Maybe because I wanted to understand her without Thomas and Daniel shouting over each other.
For the first five minutes, neither of us spoke.
Boston passed outside the window.
Finally, Rebecca said, “I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
She stared forward.
“For the restaurant.”
I said nothing.
“There is no excuse.”
“No.”
“I was angry before I got there.”
“That doesn’t make throwing food at someone okay.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She turned toward me.
“Yes.”
I studied her face.
“Why were you angry?”
She laughed bitterly.
“Mark.”
Of course.
“We fought in the car.”
“About what?”
“He wanted me to sign something.”
“What?”
“Documents giving him authority to sell some of our investments.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“He said markets were getting unstable.”
“And you said no.”
“Yes.”
“So you took it out on me.”
She looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
I stared out the window.
“At least you admit it.”
“I’ve spent most of my life not admitting things.”
I glanced at her.
She continued.
“When Sarah left, I was eighteen.”
Thomas had said Sarah was twenty.
Rebecca only two years younger.
“I was angry at her.”
“Why?”
“Because she left me with Dad.”
I almost smiled.
“That bad?”
Rebecca actually laughed.
“He was worse then.”
“I believe you.”
“He scheduled everything. Dinner at six. Family meetings Sunday. He thought emotions were problems that could be solved with a plan.”
“That still sounds like him.”
“It is.”
She looked out the window.
“But after Mom died, he was all I had. Then Sarah left.”
Her voice softened.
“I felt abandoned.”
“So you blamed her.”
“Yes.”
“Even though she was pregnant and scared.”
“I didn’t know about the pregnancy when she left.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“When she finally told me, I wanted to go find her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“She begged me not to.”
“And you listened.”
“For once.”
I thought about that.
“You could have told Thomas later.”
“Yes.”
“You should have.”
“Yes.”
There was something disarming about someone agreeing with every accusation.
I understood why Daniel’s admissions had unsettled me too.
“I hated her for years,” Rebecca said.
“Then I hated myself for hating her.”
I looked at her.
“When she stopped calling, I assumed she wanted nothing to do with me.”
“She was surviving.”
“I know that now.”
We pulled onto a quiet street.
Large old houses lined both sides.
Rebecca stiffened.
“I haven’t been here since I was nineteen.”
Thomas’s car stopped ahead.
We parked behind him.
Forty-eight Hawthorne Street stood at the end of the block.
Three stories.
Dark brick.
White columns.
Most windows were black.
One light burned upstairs.
Rebecca stared.
“That was Sarah’s room.”
My heart pounded.
Thomas came to our car.
“Someone’s inside.”
Daniel joined him.
“Kevin?”
“Maybe.”
Mark walked toward the gate.
Thomas stopped him.
“No.”
Mark looked at him.
“You want answers?”
“I want everyone alive.”
Mark almost smiled.
“Growth.”
Thomas didn’t.
We called police this time.
Not because anyone wanted to.
Because I insisted.
“If we go in and something happens, then we’re just repeating every stupid decision this family has ever made.”
Rebecca nodded.
Thomas agreed.
Daniel complained.
Nobody cared.
Police arrived fifteen minutes later.
They entered first.
Then one officer came back.
“The front door was open. No one appears to be inside.”
“Appears?” Thomas asked.
“We’re clearing the basement.”
I stared up at the glowing window.
“Then why is that light on?”
The officer looked.
“It’s on a timer.”
Rebecca whispered, “Sarah used to sleep with that light on.”
We entered after police cleared the house.
The inside had been renovated, but parts remained.
The staircase.
The fireplace.
A stained-glass window.
Rebecca touched the banister.
“She slid down this once and broke her wrist.”
Thomas almost smiled.
“She blamed the dog.”
“We didn’t have a dog.”
For a moment, grief felt warm instead of sharp.
Then a police officer called from upstairs.
“You need to see this.”
We hurried up.
The room with the light was almost empty.
A desk.
A chair.
A bookshelf.
On the wall were photographs.
Dozens.
My mother.
Me.
Thomas.
Rebecca.
Emma.
Even pictures of the restaurant.
Recent pictures.
Rebecca whispered, “Oh my God.”
Someone had been watching all of us.
I moved closer.
A photograph of me leaving my apartment yesterday.
Another of Rebecca outside a charity event.
Thomas entering his office.
Emma leaving school.
Mark at an airport.
Daniel outside a motel.
Every person connected to the story was there.
Then I saw Kevin.
Several photographs of him too.
One showed him talking to Alan Price.
Another showed Alan handing Kevin an envelope.
But one image was different.
Kevin was tied to a chair.
Blood on his shirt.
The date stamp was tonight.
Rebecca gasped.
Thomas shouted for the police.
I stared at the photo.
If Kevin was tied up tonight, he hadn’t left the restaurant willingly.
Someone had taken him.
On the desk was a handwritten note.
Thomas picked it up.
His hands shook as he read.
YOUR DAUGHTER HID THE TRUTH IN THIS HOUSE.
YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO FIND IT.
AFTER THAT, KEVIN DIES.
I looked at the clock.
11:08 p.m.
Fifty-two minutes.
Then Daniel whispered, “I know where Sarah would have hidden it.”
We all turned.
“Where?” I asked.
May you like
He stared at the old fireplace.
“In the place Thomas would never look.”
