Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Griffen started to speak, and I interrupted.
“I know I can’t change the past. And I know there’s nothing I can do to make up for what I’ve done. But I can’t start over until we know who killed our father.”
Griffen crossed his arms over his chest and gave a short nod. “Go for it,” he said. “Just keep your eyes open. And be careful.”
I forced out a curt “Thanks,” and escaped his office.
I took the stairs to the attic two at a time, only a little out of breath as I reached the top. My father hadn’t been one for going through files and had never ventured into the attic, as far as I could remember. Which was why, in the months before his death, I’d taken to hiding my research up here.
By then, I was living in a suite in the Inn at Sawyers Bend, unable to tolerate sharing a roof with Prentice any longer. But his office had remained here, and he’d grown hermit-like in his refusal to leave Heartstone. He’d fired staff, even Miss Martha, Savannah’s mother and our longtime housekeeper. Artwork had been disappearing, the house growing dusty, cobwebs springing up in the corners.
I hadn’t known he’d been grieving the loss of Caro, the woman he’d hoped to make his wife, and the child he’d expected her to give him. I didn’t know how much sympathy I would have had if I had known. In a million years, when I’d suggested they co-sponsor that charity event, I’d never imagined it would end the way it had. Caro was another man’s wife. Our friend’s wife.
Not that my father had ever cared for other people’s marriage vows—or his own. It hadn’t occurred to me that he had enough heart to grieve anyone. Back then, I’d thought the decline of the Manor said something about his mental state. I’d thought if I could find anything compromising in his business records, maybe that, along with the state of the house, could be used to wrest control of the company from Prentice.
When I’d conspired to get rid of Griffen, it had been about envy. I could admit it now. But in the years before Prentice had been killed, I hadn’t been driven by envy or greed. It had been about my family. After far too long, I finally saw Prentice with clear eyes: the manipulations, the lack of ethics. He knew how to stay just inside the law while rarely doing what was right, and I was tired of it. I wanted to have collaborative relationships with our business partners. I wanted to support my siblings in finding their dreams. I wanted to sleep well at night. And for any of that to happen, I had to get rid of Prentice—or at least neutralize him.
I’d gone through everything I could find, looking for the proverbial smoking gun. Now I had to wonder if buried somewhere in those papers was the answer to who killed my father. Had I been getting too close? What had I missed?
The only way to find out was to restart my investigation.
I remembered where I’d stopped, more than a year ago, only days before Prentice had been shot and I’d been arrested. I’d been going through a banker’s box stuffed with files I’d hidden in an antique wardrobe in a corner of the attic. It was still exactly where I’d left it, the wardrobe too bulky and dated for Savannah to have tried to put to use.
I pulled over a threadbare bench and opened the box. Hours disappeared as I leafed through files, contracts, and pages of notes. A real estate deal for some strip malls in the upstate of South Carolina. We’d done well on that one. The seller, not as much, but there wasn’t anything here to inspire murder, and I set it aside. Stacks of leases for businesses in town. I saved a few that were worth looking into. For the most part, nothing there either.
Below that, a legal-sized envelope. When I unfastened the flap, invoices flowed through my hands, thin and crinkly with age. A plumber, an electrician—but these looked old. I checked the date and did a double-take. Really old. 1986. I’d been an infant. I didn’t remember this much work done on the Manor—but would a child really note that? I sorted through the stack of papers in my lap—concrete, gravel, the garage. Prentice had been the one to tear down the old carriage house and convert the second ballroom beneath the guest wing into garages—less gracious, but much more convenient. But that had been done prior to my birth, so why had he done more work in ’86? I didn’t know.
I shuffled the invoices back into the envelope and set it aside to ask Griffen. Maybe Miss Martha knew. Savannah’s mother remembered everything. Steps sounded in the hall outside the door. The attic was divided into different rooms, most of which were stuffed with furniture. I caught sight of a small blond head of hair by the doorway.