Chapter 10

Declan, a murderer?

I think back to the look on his face when he told me he'd liked my dicky dad. That he was going to miss him a lot.

There'd been genuine grief in his eyes. But had he been grief-stricken because he'd lost a friend or because he'd murdered one? He certainly has secrets—a whole bucketload of them. Maybe two. But I can't believe it. Frankly, I don't want to.

And the thought of Mrs. Rosings killing anyone is laughable…until I consider the way she had that flask hidden away in her bag but kept getting on my case about the bourbon I'd drunk before coming to the airport. She's capable of deceit.

I run my hands through my hair—still wet—and lower back into the chair. Nicole's still tipped back in hers, looking utterly unconcerned by what she just told me, even though she's blown my world apart, again, for what is probably the third time in twenty-four hours.

"Wait," I say, putting two and two together and finally getting four again. "We're not going to even get into how you did it…but you seated me next to two people you think could be killers?"

She barks a laugh. "Oh, come off it. If they did it, they're not the kind of killers who'd randomly off people for the fun of it. If they did it, it was personal. Trust me, Dick was a guy who had an uncanny ability to piss people off."

"Runs in the family, huh?"

Her eyebrows rise. "You're part of that family."

My mind works away at what she's told me, and I find myself thinking of something she said earlier. Dick might not have been my father in any sense but DNA donorship, but he was hers in every sense. For a while, at least. He probably wasn't the best father, judging by the fact that he left her and never bothered introducing himself to me, but he did mean something to her. It makes me feel bad for her for half a second, before I remember that she's been pulling my strings.

"It's fucked up that you did that," I say. "Really fucked up."

"I know," she says, rocking. "So was it worth it? Did you buddy up to them, or are you one of those people who zips up in planes?"

"You know, it was a pretty rough flight. We thought we were going to crash."

The look on her face tells me I'm not going to get any sympathy or remorse from her. "Oh good," she says. "People say all kinds of shit when they think they're on death's doorstep."

"Thanks for your concern," I say tightly. "But yes, I talked to both of them. Does this mean Mrs. Rosings lives in Marshall too?"

"Just outside, but yeah. She's got herself a big old mansion."

Troubled, I tap the edge of the table. "But Declan didn't seem to recognize her."

She snorts as she lowers her chair to four legs. "Why would he? He's a hot piece, and I'm guessing it's never occurred to him that women over forty exist."

Her take on him doesn't resonate, but I'm guessing she knows a lot less than she thinks she does—while also knowing more than I'm comfortable with.

"Dick was shallow too," she says. "No way he was tapping that for any reason but the money in her bank account. I figure maybe he ripped her off, and she got salty about it. Poison is a woman's weapon, and—"

"Do you know this from experience?" I ask, glancing at the empty glass in front of me.

"No," she says, laughing. "But if there was poison in it, it would be all over my shirt. You don't have anything to worry about."

"I can't stay in this house with you."

She presses a hand to her chest in mock disbelief. "Are you scared of me, Claire?"

Yes. Any sane person would be.

"No, of course not. But you're…"

"Crazy, we covered this. But it's a deceptively large house, and you won't be here alone with me. My husband Damien is staying here too, and most people like him. Besides, your bedroom door locks, and I have it on good authority that you couldn't even afford a room at the motel with the feet smell."

"This is exactly what I'm talking about," I say, waving a hand at her. "You've been looking up my private, personal information."

She lifts her eyebrows, staring into my eyes with her hazel ones, so uncannily like my own. "Wouldn't you have done the same if you found out you had a sister, and you had the power to learn about her?"

"Maybe," I admit, "but that doesn't make me any more comfortable with you messing around with my private life."

"Speaking of private life," she says pointedly, checking out my T-shirt. "Did you bang our father's weed dealer and steal his shirt?"

"Excuse you," I say, crossing my arms over my chest, feeling the lack of a bra. "I already told you what happened." For a second, I can see Declan in my head—his hair soaked from the rain, his eyes latched onto me like I was someone he wanted to keep looking at for a long while. I can feel the brush of his beard against my face. It's only then, with Declan in my head, that I register her accusation. "Weed dealer?"

She shrugs carelessly. "Grower, dealer. Who knows what they're calling it these days. It's barely even scandalous anymore now that it's practically legal."

"I thought he was a landscaper," I say faintly, my voice coming out weak, because that was one of the only things I thought I knew about him for sure, and it's probably not even true. I don't mind that he grows weed, really, but it speaks of a kind of moral ambiguity. There's a difference between smoking it and growing it, right?

"He is," Nicole says, "and he happens to be very skillful at growing things."

"How do you know all of this?" I ask, frustrated.

"That's my job," she says, tapping her temple with two fingers. "Knowing things and using that knowledge to benefit myself."

"So you think Declan killed our bio-dad over…weed? That's a stretch. You're right, it's practically legal now. In New York, it is legal."

"Not here, yet. But yeah. I wouldn't think that was why. That guy's got secrets, though, and Dick liked to use information as currency, same as me. He might have been trying to bribe him."

She's right about the secrets, but from what I could tell, Dick was maybe the only person Declan had felt comfortable sharing his secrets with. In so much as he's comfortable sharing them with anyone. But I doubt she'd take my word for it.

Still, I feel compelled to say, "I don't think it was him, or Mrs. Rosings."

She lifts her eyebrows and angled her head. "No one suspects women, but she could have pushed some pills down him, then given him a shovey-shove. Should be easy enough to prove or disprove, especially now that you're best buddies with her."

"I wouldn't say we're best buddies," I mutter. Although, truthfully, I would have been happy to see her again if not for the murder accusation. "But she's…"

I was about to call her nice, but that's not strictly true. Interesting is a better term for her, which is the same word Rex used for Nicole.

"Regardless, you're our in. We'll go see her tomorrow."

I swallow, trying to appear unaffected, like I couldn't care either way, and say, "What about Declan?"

"Oh, you'll be seeing him," she says. "You'll be seeing a lot of him."

That sounds a bit ominous, and suddenly I really do need a drink.

"Do you have any sealed bottles?" I ask.

She gives a slight nod as if in approval. "You want a beer?"

Not really, but I nod. She gets up and grabs me a can from the fridge, hands it over and takes a seat again.

"Buchanan Brewery," I comment. "I've never heard of that before."

"I'm starting to think there's a lot you haven't heard about, sweet summer child. But don't you worry, I'm going to show you the way."

I'll bet that's what they told my mother before she transferred her bank account to the Tribe of Light.

"What happens if I don't want to stay here?" I say, even though I know she's right—I can't afford a hotel. Not without taking the money from my dad.

"Well, I wasn't shitting you about Dick's will. It is interesting. Our inheritance is contingent on both of us staying in this house for a month. If you leave, this heap of shit is all mine. The insurance money too, presuming we're even able to get it."

"A month," I ask, my mouth gaping open. I'd figured I might need to stick around for a week or two to get the house ready for market. But a month, with her? I've been here for less than an hour and I already feel like a chess piece being glided around on a board. Still, the news isn't totally terrible. Declan's next door, and if I'm here for that long, maybe I'll have time to figure out what his deal is. And yet… "Why?"

She shrugs, her mouth pursing to one side. "It's like I told you, our father was kind of a dick. Maybe he wanted to inconvenience us one last time."

"I don't know if I can stay here for a month…" Unless… "You have your husband here. Could my friend Lainey come stay with us?"

She shrugs again. "As long as she doesn't hit on Damien. If she does, I'll have to kill her. Same goes for you."

"I'm going to take that as a yes."

"Half of the house is yours. Have an orgy if you want."

"No thanks." I sigh and take a sip of the beer. "You know, speaking of orgies, Declan said Dick used to sneak women into his back yard because he had the better mountain view."

She gives a muffled laugh. "Yeah, he really couldn't keep his dick in his pants. We probably have half a dozen other siblings, and we're the only two he knew about."

I give her a half smile. She's probably nuts, this whole situation is definitely nuts, but I feel surprisingly energized given all the excitement and lack of sleep. I take a moment to consider why and decide that part of it is because I don't know what's going to happen five minutes from now, let alone in five days. It's surprisingly nice to feel unmoored when I'm used to my days and weeks and months and years following a similar and frankly uninspiring pattern. Sometimes you don't know you're stuck in a rut until someone blows up the rut, and you with it.

I look around the kitchen, taking in a few surprising touches—a framed photo of a scrappy looking mutt and a dried flower arrangement. The man who's taken shape in my head—a lazy wannabe prepper with twenty girlfriends and who-knows-how-many illegitimate kids—wouldn't hang either of those things up. But here's the evidence that Richard Ricci, or someone close to him, did.

It's strange and arresting to think that the man who was living here a week ago—my father—is dead. He'll never walk through this kitchen again, or sneak into Declan's backyard. He'll never be anything more than a photograph to me. An idea. Stories told by other people. Stranger yet: these things he left behind outlived him. Hell, the burned food stuck to his stovetop outlived him. It's the kind of thought that shakes a person and makes them want to clear their browser history.

"I guess I missed his funeral," I say softly.

She snorts. "There wasn't one. We're supposed to throw a party for him at the end of the month."

I nod. "I can help with that. My father's an event planner."

"I know. Chuck Rainey. He has a four-point-eight average on Yelp."

I roll my eyes, preparing to get up, then pause and look at her. "Are you sure he didn't kill himself, Nicole? This…it seems like he had it all worked out, what he wanted to happen after he went."

"I'm sure," she says, staring me down even though she's shorter, sitting or standing. It's a kind of super power I'll never possess.

"He was your father. You wouldn't want to think—"

"Look," she says firmly. "I'm very well aware of who and what he was. He didn't do it. He was paranoid. The lawyer's office told me he kept changing the will, adding codicils and what have you."

I'm tempted to point out that there's a reason cops don't work on cases for blood relatives or close friends, but I doubt she'd take it well.

"Okay," I agree. "What did he do for a living anyway? I don't know anything about him."

Or you.

"He was a contractor," she says. "He worked on houses and shit, but he was really bad at it."

Of course he was.

"Can you show me where I'm staying?"

She grabs her glass of bourbon, her shirt still wet and reeking of a bar, and I feel a stab of contrition. "I'm sorry about the dr—"

A finger is waved in my face. "Never apologize after taking a stand. Never. It undermines the whole gesture."

"Ohhh-kay."

"I'll take you on a tour of our shit heap."

I keep the beer and reclaim my bag, and Nicole leads me on a tour of the downstairs part of the house, which lasts all of five minutes. There's the kitchen; the living room we passed to get to the kitchen, with the large plate glass window; plus a dining room with a large table that looks like it was used as a work table rather than for eating. There's also a bathroom and a small sitting room lined with books. The sight of the armchair in that room, a faded blanket layered over it, makes my eyes feel hot. Because I can tell it was a favorite chair—one he enjoyed sitting in—and he's gone, but it's not.

I was expecting photos, maybe even a photo of my mom, or a baby picture of me she might have sent him, but there aren't any. Not a single one. The only other things on the walls are a framed cross-stitch of an eagle and a line drawing of a marijuana leaf.

"Let's move this party upstairs," Nicole says jovially. So we do. Each step is attended by a healthy creak, and I can't help but think about Dick Ricci and his last trip down them. The thought gives me a whole body shiver.

She said Declan found him. It must have been awful, beyond awful. It's no wonder he's feeling the weight of it. I'd like to ask him about it, but a person shouldn't go around poking at other people's trauma. So I pat the thoughts down and tell them I'll attend to them later. After I've seen the house.

There are three bedrooms. One of them—the one Nicole and Damien have claimed—has a bathroom attached, and there's also a small bathroom in the hall, between the two others. I'm satisfied that the house is plenty large enough for Lainey and maybe a quarter of her boxes, if she chooses to come.

"Is that all you brought?" Nicole asks, eyeing my small carry-on as I bring it into one of the two open rooms. It's wood paneled, and there's a queen-sized bed with a comforter that looks like it came from a discount bin somewhere. The only other furniture is a dresser I have nothing to fill and a desk with a chair.

"No, I brought a suitcase, but the plane I took to Charlotte got re-routed, and it came in too late for me to make the connecting flight to Asheville. They said they'd deliver it to me when it comes in."

She laughs, holding the wall to brace herself. "Yeah, you're definitely never getting that back."

"They seemed pretty confident about it," I say, mostly because I want to disagree with her.

"I give it a ten percent chance of happening. Maybe seven. I'll bring you some clothes." Her gaze lingers on the green Marshall shirt. "Unless you want to keep wearing your sex shirt as a token."

"It's not—" I cut myself off, because there's obviously no point in continuing to protest. But I feel very justified in glowering at her. "I don't know why you want me to have sex with Declan if you think he's a murderer."

"There's a reason Mata Hari was a successful spy," she says with a wink. "I'll leave you to unpack your five things."

She's back a few minutes later with an all-black outfit that'll make us too matchy-matchy for my taste, not to mention she's several inches shorter than me and one pant size smaller. I'm in no position to protest, and I don't have a car that I can use to get something else. There's the Jeep, which probably has keys somewhere, but it's almost as intimidating as the van was earlier.

I had the presence of mind to bring some of my toiletries in my carry-on, at least, but I'll need to buy some basics I can use before my bag shows up.

Ifmy bag shows up.

My bag needs to show up.

Of course, I'll have to borrow or rent a car to get anything from town, which would be much easier if I didn't have to do it on my phone, with its tiny font.

My reading glasses were in my suitcase, too.

"Can we get the internet installed?"

She winks. "Already on my bucket list, sis. Although maybe it'll do you good to stay off Instagram for a few days. Normal people only like looking at so many photos of cake."

With that, she's gone.

I lock the door, then change into the damp bra and Nicole's clothes and sit on the bed and drink my beer with my back to the wall, suddenly too tired to call the airline or Lainey or my dad or do any of the things I need to do to be a responsible adult.

When I finish the beer, I lie down and stare at the watermarks on the ceiling, thinking about Nicole, the father I didn't know and the mother I knew less than I thought. I'm tempted to poke around in the house—to learn more about him that way—but I don't have the physical or metaphysical energy to try. I also think about Declan.

Is he back home?

Is he thinking about me?

Is he jerking off to what happened earlier?

Is it totally screwed up that I'm still into him?

He's very good-looking—painfully good-looking—but if it were just a matter of hotness, it would be easier to let it go. No, it's something else that has me on the hook…maybe it's the near death experience we shared or the fact that he knew my bio-dad.

Or maybe there's a part of me that's sick of being agreeable and good, and I want to grab one of Declan's shovels and dig up all of his dirt until he's laid bare to me.