“About the night my wife d**d.”
Vanessa laughed.
It wasn’t a real laugh.
It was the kind people use to buy time.
“She’s lying,” Vanessa said. “She’s trying to save her job.”
“Then show me your phone.”
“Excuse me?”
“Show me your phone, Vanessa.”
She crossed her arms.
“I don’t owe you that.”
“You do,” I said. “Eleanor was my wife.”
“She d**d in this house.”
“I have a right to know everything.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
For a second I saw something behind her eyes.
Not sadness.
Calculation.
“Fine,” she said. “Ask Nora yourself.”
“She’s the one hiding things.”
“Not me.”
She walked past me toward the door.
I grabbed her arm.
Gently, but firm.
“Don’t leave this room,” I said.
She yanked her arm back.
“Don’t touch me,” she snapped.
“You don’t get to grab me in my own house.”
“This isn’t your house,” I said. “It’s mine.”
“It was Eleanor’s family’s before that.”
Something flickered across her face again.
Fear, maybe.
Or anger dressed up as fear.
She didn’t answer.
I walked upstairs.
Nora was sitting with the girls in Grace’s room.
Amelia had her stuffed rabbit again.
Vanessa must have given it back at some point.
Or Nora had rescued it from the fireplace before it burned.
“Girls,” I said. “Can you give me a minute with Nora?”
Grace nodded.
She took Amelia’s hand and led her to the hallway.
They sat right outside the door.
Close enough to still feel safe.
I closed the door most of the way.
“Tell me everything,” I said to Nora.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
Her hands were shaking.
“I should have told you two years ago,” she said.
“Told me what.”
“About the night Eleanor d**d.”
My chest went tight.
“She fell down the staircase,” I said. “The report said an accident.”
“That’s what everyone was told.”
