Chapter 8

With a lump in my throat, I stare at the handgun resting in Cole’s palm. What use could my prim and proper and perfectly put together grandmother have for a handgun hidden in a false wall in her closet?

Lots of people have guns, I try to reason with myself. This doesn’t prove anything. It doesn’t make her dangerous.

I swallow and stand, running my hands over my thighs. “Put it back.” My voice is barely above a whisper, but Cole does as I’ve instructed him to, sliding the gun back in place and standing up. He runs a hand through his raven hair. “You didn’t know that was in there?”

“Maybe it wasn’t hers,” I say softly, talking to myself more than him. “Maybe it was my grandfather’s. Maybe she didn’t know about it. Even if it was hers, so what? It proves nothing.”

“It might not have been hers, sure.” He pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger. “But regardless of whose it was, how would whoever wrote this letter have known about it? Why would they think it means she’s dangerous? Maybe she just had it for protection. She was a wealthy woman living relatively alone. She had employees and us, of course, but it would’ve been up to her to protect the house.”

I nod. It makes sense. It’s not as if finding a gun in the house is too much of a reason to be afraid, but it feels so out of place here. It’s as if I’ve been doused with ice water in the middle of the street. Everything feels wrong. Off.

“She was by herself,” I repeat, mostly to myself. “It was probably just for protection. Whoever wrote the note is just trying to scare us, like with the lock-your-door thing before.” I pause, chewing the inside of my cheek. “But you’re right, who else would’ve known about the gun?” My eyes find his. “Your mom?”

“Maybe,” he mutters, “or…” He pauses. Swallows.

“Or?”

“There was…” He pauses again, rubbing a hand over his mouth.

“Spit it out, Cole.”

“I’m trying to remember. There was…this night right after you moved in. Maybe a month or so after. I came down in the middle of the night to get a snack and”—his brows pinch together as he clearly tries to piece together the memory—“there was a man in the kitchen. They were fighting. Like…arguing.”

“A man? Who?” I don’t understand. In all my time coming to Bitter House after my grandfather died, even before I’d moved in, I never knew Vera to have any men over, aside from my cousins—Zach and Jonah—and their dad—my uncle Marcus, who works overseas and is only around on holidays. Zach and Jonah would have both been kids back then, hardly men.

“I don’t know. An older man. He was shouting at her, and…I think she had a gun.”

My throat goes dry. “Wait. What? What are you talking about? You’re just remembering this now?”

He massages the bridge of his nose with his eyes closed. “I don’t know for sure that I’m even remembering it right. It was a long time ago, and if she had a gun, I never saw it. Her back was to me when I walked into the room, and she wasn’t, like, holding him at gunpoint or anything.” His eyes open, then he squeezes them shut again. “I just remember him asking something like ‘what are you going to do, shoot me?’ But then I walked into the room, and they saw me. Realized I was there. He stepped away from her, and Vera told me to go back upstairs.”

“And you just left her?” I demand. Granted, he would’ve been about twelve at the time, if it was right after I moved in, but he could’ve told someone, woken his mom, called the police, something.

“Of course not.” He scowls. “I walked into the room and asked what was going on, but Vera told me to go to bed again, so I went and woke up Mom.”

“And then what happened?”

He sighs. “I don’t remember. She told me to go to sleep and she would handle it, and I never heard anything else. I didn’t really think anything else about it until now. But if she had a gun that night, if she was hiding it from me, that man—whoever he was—would’ve known about it.”

“And you’ve never seen him again?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“But, even if he knew she owned a gun, would he have known where it was hidden?”

He sighs, scrubbing his hand over his head. “I guess there’s not really a way to know.”

“I don’t understand. Why didn’t you tell me about all of this when it happened?”

His brows pinch together, his chestnut eyes drilling into me as if I’m ridiculous. “It’s not like we were friends back then. You hated me.”

“I didn’t hate you. I…you were mean to me. I moved in here because my parents had died. I was scared and alone and sad, and you acted like having to share a house with me was a punishment.”

“It wasn’t that.” He sighs, weighing his words. “It was…I already felt out of place here, and then you came along—Vera’s actual family—and it made me feel like I was even more invisible. Suddenly my mom had this new kid to take care of, and her job was busier than ever. I didn’t even know you when you moved in. It was never about you. I was actually excited to have someone my age here at first, until I realized it meant the time I had with my mom and Vera was split. And then I tried to get to know you, and you acted like you were too good for me. Like you were disgusted to share a house with me,and I thought?—”

“Yeah, right. I specifically remember you calling me a ‘Goody-Two-Shoes’ a few days after I’d moved in. Before I’d done anything to possibly make you mad.”

He waves a hand in my direction, gesturing up and down my body. “Please. You were the perfect, shiny little rich kid who spent hours in the bathroom doing her hair and picking out her clothes. And, if I’m remembering it right, I called you that after you were rude to my friends when I had them over.”

“Because your friends were idiots.”

He looks like he’s going to argue, but he thinks better of it and nods. “Fair, but the point is I avoided you because it was clear you’d rather not be around me.”

I press my lips together. I could argue or lie, but the truth is, he’s right. I didn’t want to be around Cole back then because he was a constant reminder that some people still had a mother. Every time he fought with Edna or slammed his door, every time he argued with her over something stupid, I wanted to tell him how lucky he was. How he should just hug her because she could be gone in a split second.

But I was a kid, and he was an older boy who wanted nothing to do with me, so I kept my mouth shut and seethed in silence.

He folds his arms across his chest and draws in a deep breath. “I’m sorry about how I treated you back then, okay? I am. And I’m not saying we have to be friends, but can we at least try to get along for the sake of figuring out what’s going on?”

I nod with a deep breath of my own. “Yeah, okay.”

“Great.” He holds out his hand and shakes mine like this is some sort of business deal, and then we walk from the room, leaving Vera’s secret hidden in the wall.