Chapter 50

50

Rose Cutter is at home, trying to enjoy her day of playing hooky from work. She needs to think. There’s so much going through her mind. A sudden, sharp knocking on her door makes her jump.

Her entire body tenses. Maybe she should pretend she’s not home.

But the knock comes again, persistent. She hears a shout through the door. “I know you’re in there, Rose.” She recognizes Catherine’s voice. “I’ve already been to your office and I can see your car in the driveway.”

Reluctantly, Rose gets up and opens the door. She has to face her sometime. She steps back and Catherine enters the house. Rose tries to gauge her expression. But Catherine, as usual, is hard to read.

“Can we sit down?” Catherine asks.

“Sure,” Rose says, moving into the living room, where two small couches face each other over a low table.

“So,” Catherine begins once they’re settled, because Rose can’t bring herself to speak. “I’m supposed to believe you’re my half sister.”

“Catherine, I know this must be upsetting,” Rose begins. “I had no idea. My mother only admitted it to me yesterday, after I learned about the will.”

Catherine looks away in disdain.

Rose now sees how this is going to go. Catherine isn’t happy about having a half sister. She’d hoped she would be—that their relationship might develop from one of friendship into one of sisterhood. But Walter had warned her. Rose’s misgivings escalate; she feels almost like she’s suffocating. She speaks, rushing her words. “I’m sorry, Catherine. It must be upsetting for all of you. I don’t mean to cause any harm. You’re my friend.”

“Your friend?” Catherine says. “You stole Dan’s money! Oh yes, I know all about it. What kind of friend does that?” She leans forward. “How could you?”

“It wasn’t like that, Catherine,” Rose protests desperately. “I was just—borrowing the money. I was going to pay it all back. No one was ever supposed to know.”

“Well, we all know now, don’t we?” Catherine looks back at her with contempt. “So you can pay him back.”

“I can’t,” Rose whispers, looking down. “I don’t have the money to pay him back. Not yet.”

“What?”

“I invested it and lost most of it.”

“How could you do something like this?” Catherine repeats angrily.

“How? I’ll tell you how,” Rose says, finding her mettle. “I didn’t have what you had, growing up. I wasn’t rich and connected. I’ve had to work for everything I have. And I got greedy and impatient. You wouldn’t understand.” But then she tilts her head and lowers her voice and says, looking at Catherine intently, “Or maybe you would. Maybe you got greedy and impatient and murdered your own parents. Is that what happened, Catherine? Or was it Dan?”

Catherine glares at her with cold eyes. She stands up quickly and looks down at Rose, still seated. “We’ll sue you if we have to, to get back what you owe my brother. And I will make it my personal mission to make sure you are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. And you will never be accepted as part of this family.”

---

•   •   •audrey arrives home from the police station, her mind racing. She believes what she told the detectives—Fred would have told Ellen about the will. And Ellen would have told Rose. And Rose has the same troubling genes from Fred that the others do. It might have been any one of those four kids who killed him and Sheila. Audrey feels utterly betrayed by Ellen, who has always been her best friend. Ellen had never revealed anything of this to her.

She wonders if Rose is capable of murder. Ellen might soon have to ask herself the same question. If so, she’ll be all alone in her own private hell.

Audrey is grateful that she’s never had any cause to worry about her own daughter.

---

•   •   •jenna rolls out of Jake’s bed and starts pulling on her clothes. It’s late afternoon, but she’d come into the city to see him, and, as usual, they ended up in bed before they did much of anything else. He’s gotten little marks of paint all over the sheets. He’s going to need new bedding.

She’s pouring herself some juice from the fridge when he enters the tiny kitchen, doing up his jeans. She looks at him for a moment—admiring him.

“There’s something I have to talk to you about,” Jake says.

She tenses; there’s a hint of something in his voice that she doesn’t like. What is it, nervousness? “What?” she says, smiling over her shoulder at him to cover her own uncertainty.

“I’m a bit short.”

She pretends not to understand, to buy time. “What do you mean?”

“My rent went up, and I don’t have enough to cover it.”

Jesus, she thinks. That didn’t take long. What’s it been, a little over a week since her parents were murdered? And he’s already asking her for money. She takes her time putting the juice back in the fridge, her back to him. Then she closes the refrigerator door and turns to face him, still not sure how she should handle it. “Can they do that?” she asks, playing for time. “Just raise it without notice?”

“I’m talking about my studio space. They can do whatever the hell they want.”

She knows he’s right. She’s seen his studio space, and it’s all under the table.

“I can’t lose my studio,” he says, with a bit more flint in his voice.

He doesn’t like it that she’s stalling, that she’s not just throwing money at him, she thinks. But it’s a delicate dance they’re doing here, something that will likely set the tone for the future. They don’t know how they’re going to do as a couple, long term, or if there’s even going to be a long term. He knows she has money or will eventually. A lot of money. And he’s lied to the cops for her. He witnessed that awful fight with her parents the night they died, and he told the police he was with her all night. She owes him, but still, she doesn’t like it that he’s asked.

“How much do you need?” she says, trying to sound like she really doesn’t mind, that this is something a new lover would do. She’s thinking a few hundred will be enough to help him out.

“Could you manage five thousand?” he asks.

She turns to him in surprise. “How much is your rent?”

He looks back at her, meeting her eyes. “It’s just that I want to have some in reserve, so that I don’t have to worry. You know I’m doing a big installation piece right now—I can’t be thinking about having to move.”

And there it is. She knows. He’s asking for more than he needs. He’s asking for what he wants. And his wants are going to get bigger and bigger.

“I don’t have money like that lying around,” she says.

“I know. But you can get it now, right?”

She notices the now. “I suppose I can try to ask Walter for an advance,” she admits.

He nods. “Great. I have to get going—I want to get some more work done. Stay as long as you like.”

He approaches her and gives her a long, intimate kiss. She pretends she’s enjoying it as much as she usually does. But when he leaves, she stares at the closed door after him for a long time.