Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I winced at the memory of Hawk’s bellow. Not patient didn’t really cover it. But… “Griffen and Hawk are going to yell,” I said with the practicality of a younger sister who’d been on the receiving end of more than a few lectures. “Everyone in the Manor will know we’re in trouble. And whoever sent us to the root cellar will know they have to cover their tracks sooner than they expected.”
“And you’re sure it’s Brax?” Forrest asked, shooting me a sideways glance. “Not Ford? Or someone outside the house who bribed someone on the inside?”
I let out a long sigh. It could be any of the above. “Yes. I think it’s Brax.” I waited for Forrest to argue, to tell me I wasn’t rational about Brax or that we didn’t have any proof.
Instead, he said, “Okay. We’ll have to be fast.”
Love bloomed in my chest, and I squeezed his fingers. This was why, even after things went so wrong, I’d always loved Forrest Powell. Even when I didn’t want to, and even when I also hated him.
“We can do it,” I said. “He only has a single room, like me. It’s big, but it’s not a suite.”
We drove down the lane to Heartstone Manor exactly on time. I texted Hawk.
We’re back. I need to change. I smell like a root cellar. Be in Griffen’s office in ten.
Three rolling dots showed on the screen for far longer than they should have. I imagined Hawk grumbling at me, tapping at the screen, and then erasing his message. Finally, words appeared.
Be there in 5.
I’d have to make it work. Forrest guided my car around to the family garage beneath the guest wing, hitting the opener on my visor. We parked in my spot and got out, my eyes immediately going to the empty place where Brax’s car would be.
“Come on, let’s go,” I said, grabbing Forrest’s hand and pushing him through the mudroom door and up the back stairs.
The second floor appeared deserted, the sconces on the walls turned low. Most of the doors were shut, including Brax’s. Hesitant, I turned the handle, wondering if I was going to have to ask Savannah for the key or borrow Scarlett’s lock picks and come back later. But the handle turned, and a second later, we were in Brax’s room. I flicked on the light.
“What are we looking for?” Forrest asked, scanning the room.
“I don’t know. Evidence? Something that has the address of that house on it or… I don’t know, maybe check his browser history.”
“I don’t see a computer here,” Forrest said, looking through stacked papers and magazines on the sofa.
I didn’t see a computer or tablet either. Brax’s room was about the same size as mine, a large rectangle. The sleeping area was set up on one side, and a sitting area on the other. There was no desk or workspace, unlike in my room. Plus, Brax was sloppy. No moldy plates or cups were sitting around, but things were tossed everywhere, another strike against him in my book.
It was hypocritical coming from me, I knew. When Griffen came home a year ago, my room was the biggest trash pit in the house. Now that I wasn’t drinking my way through life and had actually cleaned the place up, I loved the order of a neat room. Everything where it was supposed to go. Everything organized.
I glanced at the piles of clothes draped over the back of the sofa, the sliding stacks of unopened mail on the dresser. This level of sloppiness was just careless.
Or maybe I wanted to see Brax’s every fault as a character flaw.
I went for the dresser, opening and closing the drawers. Forrest headed for the closet. I didn’t find anything among the jumble of barely folded sweaters, socks, and underwear. A drawer stuffed with loose papers and mail, none of which looked remotely interesting, and the most recent of which was dated a few years before, a junk mail drawer he’d forgotten about.
I could hear Forrest off to my right, rummaging in the closet. I left the dresser and went to my knees to look under the bed. More nothing. Not even a dust bunny.
“Sterling.” Forrest’s voice was heavy.
I stood and crossed to the closet. “What did you find? Evidence? Something weird?”
“Both, maybe. I’m not sure.” Forrest held a box, I guessed from the gap above, taken from the top shelf.
“What is that?” I asked.
“You tell me,” he said, holding the box low enough for me to see inside and peel back a flap.
A Barbie separated from her head, another with her arms pulled off. A doll’s dress written on with permanent marker and cut into pieces. Rage shot through me, impotent fury tinged with grief and hollow loneliness that brought me back to childhood.
I reached for the box, pulling it from Forrest’s hands, stirring through the shreds of my past. So many little things that had disappeared. That little shit always played innocent, but here it was—everything I’d suspected Brax of stealing, broken to bits and shoved in a box in his closet. Memory came to life, and I heard echoes of Miss Martha, Darcy, and later Prentice. Calling me dramatic, asking me why I always had to blame everything on Brax, why it was always me causing trouble. Darcy, the only mother I had, her eyes chilly with disappointment because I was picking on her baby boy yet again. But here was the proof, and all these years later, it would do me no good.