But Stone—even if he loved my mama once, he chose money. I want to hate him, I do. He cared about me enough to set up this trust fund, just not enough to be my father. My heart just can’t square how I should feel.
But that family, especially how they’ve behaved these last few months, leaves a foul taste in my mouth. I wonder if Rebecca forced my father to have nothing to do with me. She forced her own sister to abort those babies, why not make Stone disown me? Hell, I bet she knows exactly what Lorelei did and doesn’t even give a shit. It’s impossible to believe I share the same blood as these monsters. They snatched Adaire from me. For what? Money? Money that was coming my way, anyway?
These people.
My sister.
She killed my cousin. Murdered my best friend.
The more I churn this over, the angrier I get. It lights a fire in me. A white-hot heat that eats up every last ounce of my humanity. I want to make Lorelei Rutledge pay.
The engine revs.
Gear thrown into Drive.
I peel out of the parking lot.
There’s no staff in the kitchen when I slip in the mansion’s back door, but I hear two murmuring voices as they close down the house for the evening. The only cars out front are Stone’s red Corvette and a beat-up sedan that’s probably one of the staff’s. It’s awfully late for Mrs. Rutledge to not be home, but I bet she’s dealing with Gabby, now that she’s been taken away to a mental hospital. Which means there’s only one Rutledge upstairs.
I dip into the shadows of the hall and wait for the last of the staff to lock up the house and leave for the night. Once they’re gone, I sneak up the private stairs, taking them two at a time, to the third floor. My blood rising with each step.
Lorelei took my cousin.
She took a brother I never knew I had.
She’s the reason my father killed himself.
The house key Becky gave me still works, and I let myself in. Moonlight barely sweeps across the receiving room. Opposite of Gabby’s tearoom, a thin light bleeds from underneath a door down the hallway.
“Hello, Lorelei,” I say as I open the door.
She flinches in her father’s desk chair. She eyes me up and down, assessing. Then she relaxes once she decides I’m probably not a threat. “Victoria,” she casually calls out as if I’m some nuisance she needs the staff to remove.
I smirk. “Oh, honey, they’re gone. It’s just you and me now.”
Panic flits her eyes back to the door.
“You’re not going anywhere.” I step into the room and close the door behind me.
She lunges for the telephone on the desk. I yank the cord from the wall before she can reach it. I toss the cord to the floor, and she leans back into her seat.
It feels strange being in Stone’s office. I’ve never physically been here, only seen the room during that Sin Eater Oil haze. How incredibly accurate it was.
Oak paneling stretches along the walls all the way to the ceiling. Those monstrous law books and shelves still lord over the room. Even the maroon leather chair is a beast to contend with. Right there between Lorelei and me, the very desk where Stone Rutledge signed away his parental rights. It confirms all the sins the dead showed me were true.
Lorelei glares, jaw clenched tight, scathing. “What do you want?”
“The truth.” I plop down in the receiving chair in front of the desk and kick my feet on top of it. “So,” I start, never feeling more alive than right now. “Tell me exactly why you ran my cousin over?”
“I didn’t. My father—”
“Liar!” I jam my foot against the desk so hard the green Tiffany lamp wobbles, threatening to topple over.
“Let’s try this again. Why did you run my cousin over?”
Lorelei watches me a long calculated minute, contemplating exactly how she’s going to respond. There’s only two years between her and I, but somehow I feel so much older. Maybe that’s the difference between hard living and being pampered all your life.
She slinks back into that desk chair; her glare dripping with hate. “What is it you think you know?”
I lean on the edge of the desk and square her with a look. “I know Stone lied to the police and covered up your little hit-and-run. I know Gabby was with you when you did it.” From my pocket, I pull out the slinky gold chain and lazily coil it onto the desk. “I know you killed your brother.”
That bob in her throat is my sweet reward.
I let her sit on that egg a bit, but it doesn’t take long before she’s grinding her teeth.
“Ellis was weak. Second from the womb always are. He was too soft to live up to the Rutledge name. He didn’t have the stomach to do what it takes to protect this family.”
It’s shocking to hear how callous she is. She doesn’t even deny killing him. “The hardest part,” I say, “is for the life of me I could not figure out where you got that poison to pour down your father’s throat to make me look guilty. But wait a minute.” I pause, mocking contemplation. “What I should have been asking myself is how would you even know that poison existed, much less know that it could be tied to me?”
The worried look in her eyes says I’m on the right track.
“Rebecca.” I drop her mother’s name like the final ace of spades to win the poker game. “Those black veins of poison still sprawl across Gabby’s belly like a spiderweb. Curious kids ask questions. Questions I’m sure your mother answered. Who would have guessed she had some of that poison left over after all these years.
“Asking you why you killed my cousin is more of a rhetorical question. Because we both already know the answer. But there’s a little something you didn’t know.” I pull the folded papers out of my back pocket. “What sucks for you, little sister, is our father already made sure I get a piece of the pie.” I drop the legal documents on the desk in front of her. It doesn’t take her eyes more than a few seconds to gobble up the shocking truth she had no idea about.
I’m about half a second away from doing a victory lap when Lorelei smirks.
Somehow, this sets me at unease. Like maybe all my assumptions and conclusions from everything I uncovered are somehow wrong.
