Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 819(@200wpm)___ 655(@250wpm)___ 546(@300wpm)
My eyes were huge. I was leaning back so far on my seat, one slight breeze and I’d topple off. “Mrs. Finley, I’m so sorry, but I truly don’t understand. Are you— Are you talking about the lawsuit from ten years ago?”
Her glare intensified—lips peeling back from her teeth.
“But I don’t understand,” I repeated. “Why would you be upset about that? My mother paid you.”
“Excuse me? Is that your new tactic?” she cried, disbelief coloring her tone. “Screaming at me that I was a worthless leech who wouldn’t get a cent out of you or your family wasn’t enough. Now you’re pretending we live in your delusional fantasy land!”
I could only gape at her, horrible understanding dawning. “She... never paid you.” My lips were numb. “My mother never paid the lawsuit. So, all this time...” I looked around the kitchen, then looked at her. “You’ve hated her.”
If possible, her snarl became even more feral. “Why shouldn’t I hate her? Why shouldn’t I hate the woman who stood up in court and argued that plastic screws or no, the trapdoor wouldn’t have given way if my son weren’t morbidly obese! If I had done my job as a mother, kept him close and healthy, he wouldn’t have almost died from being too heavy for the floor to carry him.
“Why shouldn’t I hate the beast who claimed I was only using her to profit off my child’s misery? Who claimed if my vendetta was truly about holding the guilty party responsible, I’d have sued your sister, Sarah Kim,” she spat. “Well, fat chance of that when she disappeared! Shipped her back off to China—”
“Korea,” I sliced in automatically.
“—where she could hide away in another McMansion, pretending nothing ever happened, while me and Colin had nothing!” She thumped her chest, the pound resounding like her booming voice. “Your mother blamed everything and everyone else except herself... for raising two spoiled cunts who should’ve been strangled by their umbilical cords and shat into a toilet upon birth.”
I pressed my lips tightly together, breathing slow through my nose. She was trying to provoke me. If she really hated and wanted nothing to do with me, she wouldn’t have let me through the door.
Was all of this deliberate? Was she trying to provoke me into striking first so that she’d have an excuse to kill me like she killed—
“Is that why you did it?” I asked. “Is that why you killed my mother?”
Her eyes glittered. “Why shouldn’t I have killed her? She deserved to die. All of you—throwing that tacky, obscene party—celebrating while my Colin—my Colin—” Finley’s lips trembled. “Dying peacefully on a cloud of morphine was too good for the whore who spat you out. Justice demanded she suffer, so I put it right.”
I was shaking. My whole body rattled so hard my teeth chattered. “And Mrs. Prado?”
Mrs. Finley frowned. “What?”
“Why Mrs. Prado?” I demanded. “Why did you kill her?”
“Why— Why not?” She shrugged, lips twisting. “It was her own fault—that Prado woman. She shouldn’t have gotten in my way.”
I nodded slow. “How did you get into my home and upstairs unseen?”
“What the fuck does that matter?” she barked, eyes flashing. “I did it. Who cares how?”
“Okay, fine.” My voice was nothing but a thin croak. “If I could ask just one more question then—why now? It sounds like you’ve hated my mother for ten years. Why kill her now?”
Mrs. Finley laughed. It was a terrible sound. “Why wait until she was a broken, wasted, shell of herself? Why wait until she was a leech and burden, relying on others to eat, wash, and shit? Why wait until she was scared and hopeless with nothing to look forward to?
“Why wait until I could stand over her, look her in the eyes, and see the moment she realizes I have all the power, and there’s not a damn thing she could do about it?” She laughed that horrid laugh again. “I see why only your sister got into Titan Prep. You’re definitely the stupid one.”
I was quiet for a long time. So long, my bag started buzzing. It was likely Alex calling to check up on me and see what was taking so long.
I reached into my bag, pushed aside Sue’s buzzing phone, and closed on mine. I turned the recorder off.
“You’ve been very honest with me, Mrs. Finley, and although you might not think this is sincere, I truly appreciate that.”
Her eyes narrowed to slits. No, she did not think I was sincere.
“Honesty is everything,” I heard myself say. “We all deserve it—you more than anyone.”
“What the hell are you blathering about?”
“That’s why I’ve come here,” I went on like she hadn’t spoken. “To do something I should’ve done a long time ago—tell you the truth. And it starts with this: Sarah never touched the trapdoor—”