Chapter 11

After a few hours, Edna leaves and I find myself wandering down the hall and back toward Vera’s bedroom. Everything Edna said rings through my head in faded whispers. There’s so much about Vera that I don’t know. So much I’ll never be able to understand.

In her closet, there are sets of photo albums. When I first moved to Bitter House, she allowed me to look through them on occasion, to see photos of my mother when she was growing up. Everything seemed different then, when my mother was alive. My grandfather.

Vera was different. In the years when my grandfather was still alive, she seemed so full of life. There are photographs of the family—Vera and Harold and my mom and Aunt Jenn at the park, on the sofa downstairs in the sitting room, playing in the yard. Everything sparked with a light that just wasn’t present in my earliest memories of my grandmother.

She was a different person.

I wish I could’ve known who she was before.

I know this house used to belong to my grandfather’s family, before he married Vera, and I know they inherited it when his parents died. Though Vera never talked about that time with me, I know they were happy from the photographs. I don’t think you can fake that sort of thing. When my mom talked about her parents, it was always fondly. She had a happy childhood, and as I smile down at the face of the toddler she once was, I’m so grateful for that.

I’m grateful she never had to live with the same woman who raised me.

After Harold died, Vera married another man. I don’t know if I ever knew his name until I read the obituary. It was after my mom moved out of the house, and it doesn’t seem like she ever knew him very well. I get the feeling it was some sort of quickie-Vegas wedding that was quickly annulled so he didn’t get his hands on the fortune Harold left behind for Vera, but that’s purely the story I’ve formed in my mind.

“You okay?”

I look over at Cole’s legs, then up toward his face. He’s holding two stemless wine glasses with a fizzy, slightly green-tinted liquid in them.

“Just looking at pictures.” In the one on top, Vera is sitting on the bench of a speedboat, a sun hat tied to her head with her daughters on either side of her. The smile on her face is so unrecognizable, it’s as if I’m staring at a stranger.

“I thought you could use a drink.” He sits down next to me, handing one of the glasses over. “Do you mind the company?”

I sniff the drink, and he laughs.

“It’s not poisoned, don’t worry. I’ll trade you, if you want.”

I hold it out. “Actually, yeah.”

He rolls his eyes playfully but takes it in stride and switches our glasses.

I take a sip. Vodka soda with extra lime juice. One of my favorites, though he couldn’t possibly know that, and I’m pretty sure it was Edna’s favorite, too.

“She was so different back then,” I say, running a finger over the photograph. “We didn’t get to see this version of her.”

“Life changes you,” he says sadly. “Losing people. Parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, a husband, a daughter and son-in-law. Nearly everyone she ever loved was gone long before she was. I don’t know how she was still standing, if I’m being honest.”

I flip to the next photograph, grinning when I see my mother dressed in a very large prom dress next to a boy her age, while my grandfather looks on from the background. This must’ve been taken just before he died. They had no idea it was coming.

There are several photographs of Vera and my grandfather at various outings, galas, and parties, always dressed in the finest formalwear and looking better than everyone around them.

“They certainly were something, weren’t they?” I muse, taking a sip of my drink and glancing at Cole next to me. We’re so close our shoulders are practically touching.

“What do you think it’s like?” he asks, his voice low and curious. “To love someone that much?”

I look up to meet his eyes, shocked by the question. His gaze lifts from the photo and back to me, his dark eyes warmer than I think I’ve ever seen them.

A current swims through my core. “I wouldn’t know,” I say softly. “Cozy, I guess. Safe.”

“I feel like it’s the opposite,” he whispers, his eyes drilling into mine. He cocks his head to the side, looking away briefly, and I miss the way he was just looking at me, miss the heat of his gaze. He pulls his knee up, bending his leg under himself, and his pants brush my thigh. My mind goes slightly fuzzy at the contact, and I look down, waiting to see if he’s going to pull away.

When I look back over at him, his eyes are there waiting for me. His throat swells with a swallow that I feel somewhere deep inside of me.

The air is thick between us with something like anxiety on fire. Suddenly, the space around us is too small, and we’re too close. I can feel his body heat. Or…no. Maybe that’s mine. My face is hot, ears ringing. I should want to pull away from him, but I don’t.

If anything, I want to be closer.

What is happening to me? This is Cole. Cole! The man I’ve loathed my entire life, but suddenly, it doesn’t feel so much like loathing. It feels…like the static electricity on clothes when you pull them from the dryer.

Tension crackles through the air between us, and my breathing slows.

“The opposite?” I ask.

His Adam’s apple bobs with another hard swallow, and he looks away from me, down into his glass. Swirling the cup in his hand, he says, “It must be terrifying, I mean. To love someone so much when you know you’ll lose them someday. And then…” His eyes bounce back up to mine. “And then you’ll never be the same.”

I swallow. “I guess you’re right.”

“Have you ever been in love, B? Bridget?” He corrects himself quickly.

“You can call me B.” I’m trying to buy myself time more than anything because I feel like I might combust. These feelings have never been here between the two of us. “And, um, yeah. Once.” I chew my bottom lip. “In college.” I lift my glass to my mouth, breaking whatever spell I’m currently under as I take another sip. “Blake Potter.”

His eyes follow my glass from my lips and back down, and there’s that magic again. My heart is racing in my chest, clawing at my ribcage. “What happened?”

“It just…didn’t, um, work out,” I say, my voice low and slow. It’s taking real concentration to make my brain work. He licks his lips, and I follow his tongue with my gaze, trying to make the words in my head string together to form a coherent sentence. “We, um, we…dated for three out of the four years and then it just sort of fizzled out when we realized we both wanted different things. Like…I wanted to start a career, plan a life, and…he wanted to backpack through Europe and find himself.” Even now, my smile is bitter, but the pain is numb. Cole scoots a bit closer to me, and the cologne on his skin ignites my senses.

“I’m sorry.” He seems genuine when he says it.

I shake his concern off as his eyes dance between mine. He looks as if he might kiss me, and I think I might be okay with it. “It was a long time ago.” I look down, tucking a piece of hair behind my ears. What if this is all a trap? What if he’s trying to seduce me and trick me into giving him the house? “What about you? Have you…been in love?” I can’t bear to look at him as I ask.

“Um, I don’t know.”

The tension seems to dissipate as I look up at him, the lightning in the air nearly gone. I nudge him with my elbow. “Come on. I gave you a real answer.” My skin rests against his for a moment too long, and he glances down at it, his cheeks growing red. Like a lit match to a room of gasoline, the fire is back.

“Once, too, I think. But it was a long time ago.”

“And? What was her name?”

He looks away, one corner of his mouth upturned as he takes another big drink. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Why?” I’m desperate for the answer, ready to crawl out of my skin.

“It didn’t work out.” He shrugs.

“What happened?”

“We just…couldn’t make it work. We were dumb kids.”

“So, this was…in high school? Did I know her?” I run through the roster of girls he brought home.

He shakes his head, draining the rest of his glass. “Forget it, B. It’s not a big deal. It wasn’t love, anyway. It was just a crush.”

I stand up, setting the photo album back in its place and chasing him across the room. Now the heat I feel is purely embarrassment. I was vulnerable with him, and he’s telling me nothing. “Wait! That’s not fair. I told you mine, you have to tell me yours. Did I know her? Was it one of the girls you used to bring here?”

He laughs without looking back. “No.”

“Then who?”

Spinning on his heels so quickly I slam into him, sloshing the alcohol down both of our arms, he catches me, his hands on my waist, the touch so featherlight I almost don’t feel him at all.

Except I do. I’m so incredibly aware of him, it seems impossible. The heat from his palms is searing me, but I don’t want to pull away.

Why don’t I want to pull away?

His gaze flicks to my lips, then back up. “You okay?”

His dark eyes once felt so empty, but now I see they’re galaxies waiting to be explored. There’s something deep and comforting about them, about the way he uses them and takes his time to rake his gaze over my body. There’s a heat there that matches my own. “Why did you stop so quickly? You knew I was behind you.”

“You shouldn’t have been following me so closely.” The corner of his mouth twitches.

“You shouldn’t have been running away!” I squeeze his arm, my fingers tingling from the connection. “Tell me who it was.”

He rolls his eyes, dropping his hand away from me. “Oh my god, you’re impossible. Let it go, B.”

I drop my hand, too. “No. You asked the question, and now you’re too embarrassed to tell the truth. Tell me who it was. I know her, don’t I?”

He scrapes a hand through his hair. “I was making conversation. I didn’t ask for you to go into detail. You chose to do that. It was a yes-or-no question, and I answered that. Just drop it, okay?”

I sigh, tossing my head back. I can’t believe I let myself get so carried away. What I was feeling for Cole was not desire, it was the simmering disgust that has always been there. “Now I see why Vera left us the house. Clearly, she was hoping one of us would kill the other.”

He grabs my hips without warning, pulling me flush against him. “To be clear…”

My body combusts, flames ripping through me, and I swear I have a headache from the whiplash going through my emotions right now. How is he doing this? He squeezes my hip, the other hand sliding across my collarbone, thumb against my neck. When his gaze falls to my lips, I give in to my desire. This is it. He’s going to kiss me, and I’m going to let him.

He opens his mouth, and I feel his warm breath on my lips. I part them slowly, silently begging him to do it.

“I wouldn’t kill you. Just seriously maim.”

The words wash over me like a cool breeze, and he drops his hands away from me, stepping back like I’m a flame that has just burned him.

“Phew,” I mutter, my voice barely a whisper. “Good to know.”

His eyes flash back to my lips again and then he’s gone without another word. My heart beats so loudly in my ears I can’t hear anything else.

When I make my way back down the stairs a few minutes later, the front door is standing open, and Cole is on the porch, another letter in hand. This envelope is marked with a number two, letting me know we’re getting closer and closer to discovering the full truth.

“You found another one?” Any heat I felt moments ago is washed away in an instant.

“It was on the mat,” he says, his eyes finding me with a strange bitterness. “I stepped out to get some…fresh air.”

“We’re going to have to install a camera,” I tell him, the thought just now occurring to me. “And figure out how to change the gate code.”

He nods, holding out the letter to me. “I’m assuming you want to be the first to read it.”

I’m surprised by the gesture but take the envelope anyway, tearing it open. My eyes skim the familiar font, searching for the latest secret with trepidation.

Bridget,

If you’re reading this, you found my last letter, and I’m assuming you found Vera’s secret too. I’m sorry to tell you it’s only going to get worse from here. I have another secret to reveal, as promised, and another thing for you to seek out. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to prove to you that I’m telling the truth about everything.

Your grandmother wasn’t just a liar.

She wasn’t just a fraud.

She was also a murderer.

You’ll find all the proof you need in the garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.

Signed,

A friend