The Cousins(87)

There’s no time to argue. I grab hold of the blanket beneath its knot near the couch and haul myself over the edge of the window. Shards of glass slice my arms and my wrists, spattering the pale-green blanket with blood. I lower myself as fast as I can. Before I know it I’ve run out of blanket, then curtain, and I haven’t gone far at all. I don’t know how close I am to the ground, but it doesn’t matter. There’s nowhere to go but down.

I let go of the curtain and I fall.

I slam into the ground feetfirst, my knees giving way as I tumble hard on my side. Everything hurts, but nothing so badly that I can’t roll over and look at the house. The ground floor is fully alight. Smoke is pouring out the window I just came from. The curtain hangs loose, the bottom about six feet from the ground. There’s no sign of my uncle or Theresa.

I cup my hands around my mouth and scream, “Uncle Archer! Come out!” Fighting back rising panic, I try to stand. Pain shoots up my right leg, forcing me back to my knees. “It’s okay, it’s not far. Hurry!”



The window stays empty. My lungs hurt, making it hard to yell. But I keep at it, calling my uncle’s name over and over and over until my throat is raw.

And then, thank God, he appears. Theresa is slung over his shoulder, making his crawl out the window agonizingly slow. She’s either unconscious or refusing to help, and as I watch him struggle through the billowing clouds of smoke, a furious thought sears my brain.

Drop her. Just drop her.

He doesn’t. He inches down the makeshift rope until what’s left of the window glows orange and the rope goes slack. They fall, and I hear a sound like the terrified scream of a dying animal. It takes a few seconds to realize it was me.

“Uncle Archer!” I crawl toward the motionless lump of limbs and clothing that landed a few feet away. Theresa’s face is turned toward me, her eyes empty and staring. I let out another involuntary animal sound, and scramble past her until I reach my uncle’s arm. “Please,” I whisper, tugging at his wrist to turn it palm up. “Please.”

When I feel a pulse beat faintly against my thumb, I start crying for the first time all day.





Catmint House burned to the ground that day.

Theresa’s sister, whose real name is Paula Donahue, had soaked it with gasoline before striking a match and taking off. Police have spent all week combing Gull Cove Island and staking out local airports, but there’s no sign of her. I’m convinced she made it out of the country on a fake passport and is living off money that she and Theresa stole from Mildred and stashed away offshore. It’s infuriating. At least Donald Camden, who didn’t have the benefit of a head start, was arrested in his office and is in jail awaiting trial.

Aubrey sprained her ankle in the fall from the window, and Uncle Archer suffered a concussion and dislocated his shoulder. According to medical examiners, Theresa Ryan probably died from smoke inhalation before she hit the ground.

The land surrounding Catmint House is a crime scene now, so we’re not allowed anywhere near it. But the day after the fire, Aubrey, Jonah, and I drove to the bend in the road where we’d first glimpsed the house. None of the destruction was visible from a distance, but there was something deeply unsettling about seeing an unbroken stretch of sky where the house used to loom. All of that history of Abraham and Mildred’s legacy, and my mother’s childhood home just—gone.



Mom arrived the next day, taking charge like she always does. “You can’t stay here,” she insisted as soon as she set foot in Uncle Archer’s bungalow. “It’s not private enough. The media is in a frenzy.” And just like that, we moved into a swanky Story rental house. Since then, Mom’s been acting as a liaison with police, medical examiners, reporters, and lawyers trying to untangle more than two decades of fraud.

The one thing she hasn’t done, though, is talk about what happened to Matt Ryan on Cutty Beach that summer night twenty-five years ago.

I wanted to ask as soon as she stepped off the plane that brought her to the Gull Cove Island airport. But she pulled me into a stiff hug and said, “No questions, okay? Let’s just get through today.”

She’s been saying that every day since. I’m trying to give her space, because I know that in addition to everything else she’s handling, she has to come to terms with the fact that the mother she’d always hoped to reconcile with has been gone for twenty-four years. And that Mildred Story wasn’t a villain after all, but a woman who got taken from her children without having a chance to say good-bye.

Uncle Anders took off from Gull Cove Island as soon as the first article appeared. He’s done a single interview since, with Fox News. “It’s all lies,” he said about Kayla’s story. “Made up by a bitter ex-girlfriend. May she rest in peace, of course.”



Uncle Adam isn’t granting interviews, but he said the same thing through a spokesperson. Ironically enough, sales of his decade-old book went through the roof when the story broke. Just now, at 5 p.m. sharp, Aubrey got a text from him saying that he’d made the New York Times paperback bestseller list.

She tosses her phone aside with a frown. “I guess there are no consequences for some people, ever,” she mutters.

Everyone except my mother is in the kitchen, making guacamole for tonight’s dinner. It’s the last week of July, so there’s still plenty of summer season left on Gull Cove Island, but not for us. Aubrey and Jonah are both leaving tomorrow, and I’ll follow soon after. My parents want me to stay with Dad and Surya while Mom deals with the fallout here.