42. Chapter Forty One

Chapter Forty One

T wo figures stumble out of the main doorway, hissing at the brightness like a set of vampires. I lean against the car, wondering how I'm the one who had the most uncomfortable night's sleep, but they look like zombie versions of the girls who entered the building last night. Holding a hand over their darkly-rimmed eyes, they almost crash into me whilst hunting for the rear handle.

"Heavy night?" I raise a brow. Meg grumbles something incoherent, while Avery blurts out one word.

"Coffee." I roll my eyes. Waiting for the pair of them to be seated, I slam the door as hard as I can. Their cries from inside bring a smile to my lips. Silver linings, and all that. Despite my plan to get to the manor early, I do detour for drive thru coffee like the hospitable escort I am. Nursing their takeaway cups, I slide a glance to the rearview mirror.

"Happy now?" I sigh. Daggers are glared back at me from the backseat.

"Fucking asshole," Meg seethes. Avery tilts her head in agreement.

"We know you can't be nice to save your life, but you didn't have to keep braking so sharply every ten seconds," she scowls. To prove a point, I slam my foot on the brake and the car jumps to a hastily stop. The girls cry out and curse, bringing a slither of joy to my cold, dead heart.

"Thought I saw a cat," I grunt, making a show of peering over the dashboard. Finding some Xanax in the car door, I toss it into the back, ensuring that by the time we eventually reach the manor, my passengers are semi-personable. Ditching the car a street over, we walk to the gates, which are oddly slightly parted. We enter, walking up the driveway to the house I once thought of as home. I hate being here. I hate the feeling of time lost, of memories faded.

On approach, there is nothing out of place to be seen. No scaffolding, no sign of any restorations taking place. Avery strolls for the front door until I make a sound in the back of my throat. Jerking my head to the side, we amble around the outside of the manor first. My gut tells me something isn't right, starting with the open gates.

Everything seems normal; the sliding doors are locked, the pool is covered over for the winter. There are no lights on, no one anywhere to be seen. Until we get to the rear, I'm starting to believe there's no reason Avery couldn't return here after all. Fantastic news for me, I think, but then I see it. The window to my father's study is covered with wooden slats, remnants of glass still littering the trampled bushes underneath.

"What the hell?" Avery takes a step back. My hand flashes out before I can stop myself, spying a shard of glass just behind her heel. As soon as she's stable, I retract it and then push past, shoulder barging her for good measure. I wouldn't want her to get the wrong impression.

I lead the pair to the kitchen door, finding it also locked. Avery shoves me aside as payback, and reveals a lockbox between the shrubs. She knows the code to release the key, and once inside, she attends to the alarm. I push my hands in my pockets, leaning against the counter with nonchalance. Maybe then she won't realize I wouldn't have known what any of the codes were. It won't be my birthday and I sure as shit refuse to acknowledge hers.

From the inside, my father's study looks like a bomb has exploded. A weapon has smashed through his desk, cleaving it in half. The drawers are strewn across the floor, papers and files upended across every inch. His sideboard is in similar condition, although the bottles of drinks have been left untouched.

"What do you think happened in here?" Avery holds a hand over her chest. Meg doesn't spare her much of a glance, her face grave as she assesses the mess.

"Seems like someone was looking for something. The real question is, did they find it?"

"Not likely," Avery scrunches up her nose. "Nixon only kept work files in here. Anything of personal importance is in the safe." I still, on the verge of stepping into the study. Keeping my face impassive, I half-turn my head to acknowledge the outline of her face.

"We need to check if the safe is intact." My words are crisp and sharp, hopefully not revealing that I have no idea where this fucking safe is. The girls both lead the way, allowing me to fall behind and keep watch. Meg's reassured swagger is a visual reminder that she knows my own home better than I do. Up the stairs and along the passage, we enter a nondescript room containing a random assortment of furniture and artwork, all covered with dust sheets. At my curious gaze, Avery rolls her eyes.

"We call it the auction graveyard. Mom often came home with random pieces she couldn't resist bidding on, although many are from charity events. There's the odd memorabilia piece she was gifted from the set of her latest film and a couple of awards dotted around too."

Making a beeline for a covered cabinet, Avery tugs the dust sheet free. The wooden piece presents as an antique, but the hinges and screws are too new. A set of double doors containing glass showcases mini trophies and picture frames within, whilst Avery pulls out the large bottom drawer to reveal a face of steel. The safe faces upwards at the three of us crowding around.

"Open it," I demand. Avery looks ready to elbow me in the face.

"It's a finger scanner," she glowers, leaving off whatever name she just wanted to call me. "I don't have access to it. You wanted to check it's intact, and it is." Staring down at the armored box, a swirl of curiosity and frustration wars within. A burning sense of needing to know what my father is hiding flares to life.

"What use are you?" I huff, walking away. The girls don't pay me any mind, taking the time to recover the cabinet. I'm on my way back to the stairs when I hear a click and the sound of footsteps from below.

"Darrell?" a gruff voice leaks through the lobby. "Did you turn the alarm back on last night?" A shuffle comes next as I plaster myself to the wall and with a flick on my hand, urge the girls to do the same.

"Yes, ‘course I did. I know I did," another voice replies, this one more nasally. The first man grunts.

"I'm calling it in." Fuck . Within seconds, my father is going to know we've disobeyed him by coming back home, calling him out on his bullshit restoration lie. He's covering up a break-in, and I have the uneasy sense that this is all relating to Avery. "Ay Boss, we're back in the house. There are signs of tampering with the alarm system. What are our orders?"

My feet are retracting, an arm outstretched to push the girls back into the auction graveyard room. After a beat, the gruff one comes back with the swift command to search the manor. My jaw clenches. I knew we should have gotten here earlier. Urging Avery to move, she stands firm and grabs my wrist.

"This way," she barely whispers, tugging me along the hall. Meg is right behind, ushering me along. Despite my instinct to stay still and be stubborn, I have to relent to the fact that Avery knows these walls better than I do.

She speeds along as quickly as she's able without making a single sound, into my parent's room and to the left of the four-poster bed. Releasing me to grab either side of the bedside table, the whole unit swings aside with a click to reveal an open hatch in the wall behind. Avery slips in first, Meg following straight after. It's a tight squeeze, one not made for any type of muscle, but I manage to just about fit. Behind the bedside table, there's a rope handle to pull the hatch shut, sealing us in the dark space. Lithe footsteps echo around the hidden walls and a moment later, a light appears at the top of a slender staircase.

"What the fuck is this place?" I frown as I make it to the top of the steps and enter a rather spacious room. Peering around the size of it, the crease between my eyebrows deepens. "Where the fuck is this place?"

"It's a safe room," Avery gives me a wide-eyed, mini head shake kind of action which infers I'm a fucking idiot. "And we're just below the attic. It's a minor extension that was put in years ago, only really visible from the outside if you know to look for it."

Unlike the dim steps leading up here, the room is bright and airy thanks to a vent system in the top corner. Avery moves past me to close the door with a push of a button, which I now notice is made of a heavy duty metal as it seals us inside. There's a matching one across the far side, separated by a computer desk on the left and a set of bunk beds on the right. Bedding sits neatly in vacuum-sealed bags on the end of each mattress, which is also covered in a protective plastic. A pink, fluffy rug stretches out in the center of the room, filing the space between fully-stocked shelving units.

"I'm…" I glance between the pieces of paper tacked to the walls, displaying shaded sketches or vibrant colorings. "So confused."

"I was an abused child who refused to go back out into the real world," Avery states so plainly, it's as if she's said it a hundred times before. "Mom had this room put in for me. If I was ever scared while she was away, I'd come here to feel safe."

Avery sits at the desk, powering on the computer. It's old and clunky, but comes on immediately. She loads up a split screen of security cameras I didn't know were dotted through the manor, skipping through the screens until she finds the men loitering around. There's easily ten of them, six inside and more visible through the windows. They wear dark polo shirts with a logo I can't make out, their uniforms and steel-toe boots suggesting they are here to replace the broken window. If only they were doing that, and not helping themselves to the contents of the kitchen and dropping onto the sofa to watch TV. It seems their sweep of the house was short lived.

Swinging around in her chair, Avery's blonde locks fall over her shoulder as she sits deep in thought. "Although, in the last year or two, mom started joining me in here. We would hide out sometimes."

"I didn't know that," Meg looks over to Avery from where she's retrieving a bottle of water from a mini fridge. "What did you do in here?"

Avery shrugs. "Play card games, read, sketch. Sometimes we'd watch the cameras and spy on Nixon and the staff."

"And that didn't seem weird to you?" I cross my arms, not stepping any further into the room. I feel weird being here, like this space was crafted for Avery alone and I'm intruding. Not that I'd usually give a shit, but this isn't my turf. I don't belong in the manor, never mind a place where the demons of Avery's past are meant to be firmly on the outside.

"I mean…not until now…It was just meant to be a game." Avery's gaze becomes hazy. I watch her whole world rearrange behind her blue eyes. Meg kneels beneath Avery's legs, stroking her jean-clad thighs.

"I don't think it was a game, Aves," she says softly. "I think your mom might have been scared of something too."

My eye twitches. The tension and the onslaught of guilt that hits me becomes all too much. "Stop calling her that," I hiss, clenching my fists by my sides. Two heads swivel to me, their accusing expressions adding to the weight crushing my chest from the inside. I do what I always do, blocking out the bullshit and focusing on the hatred. It lays dormant inside until I need to call on it, forcing the rest of the world to still. "She wasn't your mom," I seethe through clenched teeth.

"We're really going to do this now?!" Avery shoots to her feet, stepping to me with her chest pushed out. She's ready to swing, and I'm ready to block it when Meg pushes between us, her head upturned to the ceiling.

"Both of you stop acting like twatmuffins," Meg sighs. "If you don't want to seem like siblings, stop bickering like a pair of them." Avery steps back, strolling towards the bunk bed. From underneath, she pulls out a plastic box and places it on the mattress, her attention focused on what's inside. Meg drops down at the desk, so I head to the shelves to busy myself with being nosey.

The top half hold necessities like long lasting food and toiletries. I shift through with sparked interest. Clearly my mom thought Avery might be holed up here for long periods of time, with the need of portable toilet bottles and crystals, cleaning soap that doesn't need water and shampoo caps. I decide the lower shelves are reserved for forms of entertainment, as Avery stated. Arts and crafts, pencils, watercolor paints. Boxes of DVDs for the computer and books that have extremely worn spines. I opt not to look through the box labeled clothing.

"How often did you come here?" I ask, deciding my curiosity beats my desire to not speak to Avery ever again.

"In the early years, sometimes nightly. Once my biological father was incarcerated, it was only when the nightmares hit. That door leads to my bedroom," she jerks her chin across the room. "But recently, I only came when Mom asked. She just wanted to escape sometimes and I thought I understood." She frowns, continuing to shift through the papers holding her attention. Now she's speaking, I can't get her to shut up again. "These are all of my letters from Mr. XO. He never missed a single Christmas or Birthday. I kind of thought he was my friend. "

I kind of think that's the saddest thing I've ever heard, but I keep it to myself. It's never been so apparent to me as when standing in this room, how lonely Avery was. From outside the manor, I thought she had the perfect life. Hell, I wholly believe she convinced herself she did too. Now it's all crashing down around us both.

"Aww, I remember this one," Avery smiles distantly. Meg crosses the room to sit by her side, plucking the crumpled piece of paper from her hand.

"This was when we'd had those awful storms and all the power cuts," Meg also reminisces, clearly remembering too. " Amidst the wind that fiercely blows. In the eye of the storm, your spirit still glows. You shine brightly, providing light. Guiding me through the darkest night ."

I cringe so hard, my stomach rolls. Turning away I hang over the computer, preferring the view through the screen. Although, these jobsworths still aren't doing what they're being paid for. Most linger around, almost lying in wait, while two have finally entered the study.

Crouching over the broken drawers littering the floor, I expect them to start tidying the mess. Instead, they're carefully sifting through the papers, occasionally taking out their phones to capture a photo and move on.

I lower into the chair, enlarging the camera footage of the study only. Another man enters, this one twice the size of the others. His polo shirt appears to cut the circulation off around his biceps, his trousers too tight fitting to actually be his. The veins in his neck bulge as he shouts something, kicking the armchair over with his boot. The crash reverberates through a set of headphones sitting on top of the computer tower. I slip them on.

"This is a huge waste of time! It clearly isn't here!"

"Boss wants every inch of this room scoured before we sign off on it. If he deems the study clean, then we'll fake another break-in for the next room and move on."

"There's no one here. We could ransack the whole house and be done with it."

"You know we don't operate that way. Keep it clean and contained. That's the deal."

"Catherine Hughes kept secrets from her husband for decades. She wasn't going to leave the evidence of it lying around in his own office."

"Nixon must know by now. He'd have had people looking into her death. Once the fingers pointed to our Boss, everything should have clicked into place for the old man. He's a fucking idiot, but no one is that na?ve."

The wireless mouse in my hand clatters to the ground. I push the headphones off as if I've been burned, my entire body shaking. My jaw aches from its tensed position and my spine is rigid enough to snap.

"Wyatt? What is it?" A gentle hand settles on my shoulder. I jerk out of the seat, as far from her touch as I can get in this room. The walls don't seem so wide apart anymore, the darkness closing in around me. "Wyatt?" She calls for me again. What did that stupid poem say? A light in the darkness, the eye of the storm. Avery's pale blue eyes fill with concern, offering me exactly that. A lifeboat, if only I could let myself accept it. Twisting away sharply, I face the steel door containing me in this claustrophobic lockbox.

"When they've all left, give it an hour before you come out. We're taking Megan home and then we're getting the fuck out of dodge. No fucking arguments." I press the release button and exit, lowering myself onto the wooden steps halfway outside the safe room. Avery takes her cue to shut me out, shrouding me in darkness. I tremble, placing my head into my hands. Silently, I cry into my palms, stifling my sobs into nothingness.

She didn't just die in a car accident. My mom was killed. A sickening feeling turns my stomach. The memories I try to call on are twinged with shadows. Tainted with guilt and paranoia. Her bright smile which might now seem forced. Her lingering hold in the crook of my arm that may have been tighter than I realized. I was so distracted by my own anger. What secrets was she keeping that she couldn't tell anyone?

Cold air sweeps past my hunched frame, yet I'm on fire. Words echo through my ears on repeat. This is all my fault. I should have been there. I should have seen more. I could have saved her.