Page 128 of Threaded Lies

The hallway to where the master bedroom is has four other doors. Three are open, one is closed. No doubt the rooms are never entered. I don’t figure Holden for the type to entertain. In fact, I don’t recall ever hearing him talk about anyone outside of the office; just his brother, and at rare times his mother.

I twist my lips and move toward his kitchen. The counters are clean with a lone espresso machine in the corner and a dish towel folded in a perfect square on the island’s far corner by its sink. There is nothing else there—not a coffee cup overturned, not a dish rack waiting to be emptied, not a protein bar left out to be consumed.

It’s sparse and cold and makes me kind of sad for him.

Curious, I wander toward the massive stainless steel refrigerator, taking bets with myself that it’ll be completely empty when I open it.

It isn’t.

But it isn’t what I expect either. Two shelves of the fridge are filled with nice rows of stacked meal prep containers. Another shelf is for milk and condiments. The third has row after row of bottled water with containers of chopped vegetables and fruit, ready for consumption.

The man either just had his fridge stocked or he rarely eats. I’m leaning toward the latter simply because I know him. Food is a necessity but not something he takes time to sit and enjoy.

Except for with me.

The thought sneaks in before I can stop it. So does the warm fuzzy feeling that last night left me with.

I didn’t mean to come here. That’s a lie. I did mean to. But I fought it. I drove for about an hour until the tears came and the fear subsided into the weirdest mix of uncertainty.

I needed someone.

I needed Holden.

But with the warm feeling, with that soft slip into each other, comes the guilt that this is where I ran to last night when I needed comfort. Not to my mom or my family. Not to Chad who has known me my whole life or to my girlfriends who were on standby—but to Holden.

I jump when my phone rings. The unknown number throws me but with my dad in the hospital, I scramble to answer it, not knowing if the call has something to do with that.

“Hello?”

“Miss Rowan Rothschild, please.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not interested,” I say.

“This is Ethan Salas with Bettermint Bank. I have you listed as a beneficiary on an account here for Eleanor Rothschild. Let me see here … your grandmother, I believe.”

“Yes? How can I help you?”

“She closed out the account a few months back, but never collected the remaining funds in it. I wanted to set up a time for you to come and collect those funds or find a way to get them to you. Regardless, a signature will be needed to confirm receipt.”

“Okay. Um. What account was this for again?” I look at the space around me, wanting to find something to write with and a scrap of paper to take this all down.

“She had two accounts with us you were listed on. This one would be Monarch.”

Monarch?

“Okay.” Where would my junk drawer be if I were Holden Knight? I open the top few drawers on the far bank of drawers in the kitchen. Apparently he doesn’t have one. “One sec, Ethan, so I can get your information. I’m not … at my…” But on the fourth try, I pull open a drawer, moving a blue folder aside that sits on top of everything to find an orderly, non-junk-looking drawer. I grab a pen from its proper tray but when I lift the folder up to see if there is Post-it note somewhere under it, several papers from inside it fall out.

Post-it note secured, I write Monarch, Ethan, and Bettermint Bank on it but it’s then that my eyes catch the words on the papers that have fallen in the drawer. It’s then that the Post-it note and the pen in my hand are completely forgotten.

It’s then that my world turns upside down.

TinSpirits Master Sell-Off Plan.

TinSpirits Packaged Liquidation.

I shuffle through the titled pages, one after another, before realizing that Ethan is still on the line. “I’m sorry. Uh. I need to call you back. Something … someone is here.”

I end the call without even hearing a response as I pick up the entire folder and begin looking at one page after another.