Every Last Secret(62)

I shrugged. “Mine was cold anyway.”

She kicked a stool to the side, and Matt winced. Impulsively, I reached out and gave him a hug.

“Are you okay?” I asked him softly.

His lips tightened in one of the saddest expressions I’d ever seen. “I am. Thank you—thank you for asking.” He inhaled deeply. “I’m a little shook up. I woke up when he put the gun in my mouth.”

“Jesus, Matt. You’re lucky to be alive,” William muttered.

“I’m so glad you weren’t hurt.” I gave him another tight hug. “Why don’t you guys come by the house and get some breakfast? We’ve got the guesthouse if you want to get some privacy and sleep.” I looked at the detective. “Do you need them here? They’ve got to be tired.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Neena looked at William. “Are you sure we won’t be a bother?”

Detective Cullen nodded in approval. “As long as you’re close by, it’s fine for you to leave. Mr. and Mrs. Ryder, please keep your phones on.”

A forensics tech called Detective Cullen’s name urgently from the top of the stairs, and she glanced at us and held up her hand. “Wait for a minute. We may need you for this.” Striding out of the room, she climbed the stairs two by two, disappearing into the upper level and toward their master bedroom.

I caught the look that passed between Matt and Neena, a furtive glance that immediately raised my suspicions.

“You guys go on home,” Neena said quickly. “We’ll come over as soon as they finish with us.”

“Are you sure?” William asked. “We can—”

“We’re sure,” Matt said. “We’ll be there shortly.”

We nodded and said our goodbyes. On the way out, I glanced back at the couple, who stood apart, their gazes both stubbornly off each other.





CHAPTER 43

NEENA

The cash was stacked in three neat rows along the bottom of the hidden cavity. I stared down at the display and tried desperately to come up with an explanation for its presence.

It was in the floor of our master bedroom, the hole cleverly hidden under a trapdoor that fit seamlessly into the wood planks, the pattern hiding the outline of it. I’d found it when we moved in and had quickly put a rug over the find. Matt . . . Matt had never found out about its existence. Now, he crouched and tested the trapdoor lid, the hinges operating without a sound.

“We found this a few hours ago.” Detective Cullen nodded to the money. “What’s all the cash for?”

“I don’t know.” I held up my hands. “I didn’t even know that compartment was there.” Too late, I noticed the fingerprint powder on the top of the inset handle and cursed the oversight.

Matt reached forward, then hesitated. “Can I touch the money?”

Detective Cullen passed him a set of latex gloves. “Wear these.” She held out a pair for me, and I shook my head, stepping back. Matt got the gloves on, then picked up the closest stack of cash, the bills bound with a two-thousand-dollar wrap. He thumbed through the ones underneath it, then tapped his finger along the rows, counting. My mind calculated along with him. At least eighty thousand dollars, assuming each row held the same. All underneath our cheap rug from Bernie’s Furniture.

“It’s not yours?”

I hesitated, wondering if the cash could be taken from us, depending on my response. “I may have put it there,” I said carefully. “And forgotten it.”

Matt’s head snapped toward me, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. I glared back at him, unsure of how he didn’t see the importance in claiming this small fortune as our own. There was a long and quiet battle of eye contact, then he looked back at the cash, his focus zeroing in on the red box sandwiched beside the green stacks of bills. I followed suit, taking in the familiar red square. “What’s in the box?”

The detective nodded at it. “Open it.”

My chest tightened as Matt reached for the lid, and I wanted to shout at him that this was a trap, to step back, to not touch—

He leaned forward and stared into the box. Despite myself, I navigated to the side to see the contents from his viewpoint.

It was filled with photos. A stack of them, varying in size, the original photos cut into varying sizes. He pulled out the stack and flipped through the glossy prints.

They were all photos of William. Some blurry, some crisp. Some taken in our house, the angle odd, his attention elsewhere. Others showed him in New York, smiling for the camera, or covered in mud, at a runner’s event of some sort. It was the ones near the end that were the hardest to see. I saw the tightening of Matt’s back, the stiffening of his neck, his movement slowing as he looked at each of them in painful slow motion.

William’s wedding photo.

A selfie with him and Cat, obviously in bed.

Him at a football game, his arm around her.

Another with the two of them, laughing on a Hawaiian beach.

In each of those, Cat’s face was scribbled over in black marker, and a careful cutout of my face was glued atop the scribble, my bright smile next to William’s. Looking over his shoulder, it looked like the work of a crazy person. Me.

The last three photos were the worst. Shots of the four of us. Poolside at the club. At the Winthorpe Foundation charity golf tournament. At the Fourth of July party. In every single one, Matt and Cat were beheaded, drops of blood painted in red marker around the crude hole where their heads used to be.