Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Everyone is very aware that she left me after the incident that occurred at the gala. Or at least that’s what’s being read in black and white.
My heart clenches and I grit my teeth, kicking the chair back as I head straight for my father’s door in the back. I slip my hand into my pocket, feeling the bent paper clips there. My fingers travel up and down the thin metal.
She would never do something like this. Jules isn’t capable of it. I smile and a rough laugh slips through my lips as I stop at his door and slide the paper clips into the lock. Back in the day, I was damn good at this.
Jules would hate to know all the shit I did years ago. My pulse slows at the thought, turning cold, beating in time with the lock clicking and then the knob turns. I push open the door slowly, ignoring the memories.
The room is brighter than the hall was. The city lights pour through the blinds, creating alternating stripes of light and shadow throughout the room.
I don’t waste any time, letting the door shut behind me and moving to his desk, to the cabinet. It swings open easily as if there’s no challenge at all presenting itself.
I hesitate only for a moment, realizing whatever’s in the safe may tell me more than I ever wanted to know.
There may be evidence of him murdering my mother. It’s the first thought that comes to mind, and inwardly I curse myself. It’s been twenty years.
Slipping on leather gloves first, I press the buttons slowly, mimicking my father’s movements although the safe itself looks typical and ordinary. My lungs still, and my blood rushes in my ears as I wait for the light to flash and the small click that tells me it’s unlocked.
It was far too easy.
Piles of paper lay in the safe. Stacks of photographs are the first that I remove, right where he kept the ones of Liam’s wife and Jace Anderson. The photos are still on top. I flip through them, still in disbelief. How the hell did she even know him?
The stack directly underneath the one my father showed me makes me do a double take. I grab the photo of Jace and Cecile together and hold it next to a photo of Cecile alone. As I compare the two, my anger rises.
I’ve always known he was a liar.
It’s altered. The photo is faked. My shoulders rise and fall with a tense breath.
Why set her up? They’re already getting a divorce. It’s for you, a soft voice whispers in the back of my head. It was all to convince you it wasn’t him. He’d let anyone else take the fall.
I slip the photo back into place and scan through the others, searching for shots of Jules or myself, or anything else that proves what a conniving bastard my father is.
The next print is of someone I don’t know. I’m confused at first because I have no idea why it was even taken. There’s nothing remotely scandalous about it. I stare at the man in question and try to place him. It takes me a moment before I realize it’s Jules’s CPA, her financial advisor. The prick she went to go see months and months ago. I make it a habit to know who she interacts with. Why him? It doesn’t make sense. Maybe he blackmailed him into doing something. I’m not sure.
I stop short at the next stack. It’s a letter.
I stare at the photograph of Avery’s blackmail letter. Her signature is there. I remember how she used to sign her name. Her handwriting was distinct when she signed documents. All I ever saw was her signature. The curves though, the curves of her writing are so familiar.
My blood runs cold. It’s not possible.
It’s her handwriting in the notes. I turn to the next photograph and it’s another letter from Avery. No it’s not. It’s just a list of what looks like groceries.
I flip to the next, and that’s when I realize what these are. Photographs of her handwriting. My skin pricks with an unforgiving chill. I set the photographs down after searching through several more stacks, but not finding anything at all that makes sense.
I lay them on the seat of the leather chair before looking back into the safe.
There’s cash stuffed in the bottom. I take a stack of bound hundred-dollar bills and look behind them, shuffling the money to be sure that’s all that’s at the bottom. There must be over a million here. Although the safe is small, most of it is stacked with nothing but the bundled hundreds. So much money, it reeks of wealth.
I shove it back into place, not giving two shits about it, and that’s when my eyes are drawn up to the top shelf. A thin, brown leather-bound notebook leans against the upper compartment of the safe where the photos were. I take it out, wondering what he’d confess in a bound journal, or if it’s even his. I expect to find names and dollar amounts. Or names and account numbers, something of that nature. Information that’s irrelevant to what I’m after.