Keep Her Safe(13)

I wonder if they noticed my misstep, just now. “Abe?” I force a casual tone; meanwhile, inside I’m screaming. What do they know about Abe? “No.”

“Nothing at all? About his death . . .”

“No.”

“Have you had contact with his family?”

“He broke Dina. Ran her and that beautiful little girl out of town.”

“I haven’t seen or talked to anyone in the Wilkes family since shortly after Abe died.” At Abe’s funeral, to be precise. It was the last time I saw them.

“Thank you for your time,” Tareen says abruptly, turning to leave.

But Klein isn’t finished. “Did she leave anything for you?”

Besides the note in my back pocket? Thank God they can’t see my heart hammering through my chest. “Like what?”

Klein shrugs nonchalantly, though there’s nothing nonchalant about his question. “Like . . . anything.”

If I tell him about the note, I’ll have to show it to him, and there’s no way I’m letting on that I have it until after I’ve had a chance to face it alone. “A fridge full of food that’s gone bad,” I mumble dumbly. I remember seeing a stack of empty Trader Joe’s bags in the kitchen the day before. Who goes grocery shopping the day before they plan on killing themselves?

Klein’s lip twitches and I can’t tell if that’s the beginnings of a smile or a sneer. He produces a business card from out of nowhere, holding it out for me to take. “If you think of anything, give us a call.”

Before arriving, I was dreading stepping inside this house. Now I can’t unlock the door fast enough, feeling the gaze of the two FBI agents on my back long after I’ve closed the door behind me.



* * *



In the spring, this backyard was her happy place.

There was a time when I’d come home from class and find her perched in her lounge chair under the shade of a tree, a sweet tea in one hand and a book in the other. Seemingly at peace. When she’d notice me, she’d smile and lay her book open-faced on her lap. She’d point out the latest flowers that were peeking out from the dirt and then chuckle when I rolled my eyes at her, because I don’t know the first thing about plants.

Now I sit in her chair, under this tree with the fragrant purple flowers, and I try to recall their name. Did she write this note while sitting under this tree? Was she sober when she wrote it?

My fingers tremble as I hold the envelope. What if she admits to whatever was causing her so much guilt? What if she spells out what she meant when she said she sold her soul? I’d have to tell someone. It’s one thing to leave out the cryptic ramblings of a suicidal drunken woman from my statement, but not to go to the police with a handwritten confession?

I can’t bury that.

And yet I can’t shake her comment that someone was waiting for the perfect time to use something against her. Silas maintains that she would have told him about being blackmailed, but he’s the DA and he’s as straight and law-abiding as they come. The man has never had so much as a speeding ticket. If she did something to deserve that blackmail—something that made her a bad, bad person, as she claimed—I can’t see her running to him. She wouldn’t want to put him in that position.

The envelope is thin, so whatever she had to get off her chest must be to the point. That was my mom, though.

Taking a deep breath, I tear the corner of the seal.

“Noah?”

Uncle Silas’s voice startles me. I look over to find him standing in the kitchen window. The same window Mom reminded me to lock that night. The police investigation concluded that there was no evidence of anyone slipping in through there, or anywhere, and no signs of a struggle. The only evidence they found was the gunpowder residue on her hand.

Tucking the envelope in my back pocket, I make my way around the pool and through the French doors. “Hey.”

He turns to offer me a weary smile as he leafs through the stack of mail I left on the counter, unopened. The sun’s rays highlight the dark circles under his eyes. They’re only mildly better than when I last saw him a few days ago. He’s taken his sister’s untimely death hard. Couple that with the fact that he’s been working at least sixty hours a week, and he could use a few days’ worth of sleep.

“You seemed intense out there. What were you doing?” He glances at my empty hand, and I know he saw the envelope.

If I tell him about the suicide note, he’ll convince me it’s best to read it right here, right now. I will tell him about it—I’ll show it to him—once I’ve had a chance to deal with it in private. “Just . . . opening a bill and I guess I got lost in thought.”

He nods to himself. “I’ve been doing that a lot lately, too.”

I almost don’t want to tell him. “The feds were here.”

His hands freeze mid-shuffle. “What’d they want?”

“They asked me if Mom had said anything about Abe.”

“And what’d you tell them?” he asks carefully.

“I said no.”

He sighs with relief.

At least he can feel relief in all this. Me? I feel like the concrete block already sitting on my chest has gained a hundred pounds in one afternoon.

“Why is the FBI asking me about Abe? Did you tell anyone about that night?”