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Greer
For a hot second, I thought Jace had shown up at my door to tell me about his meeting with Marina last night. I’d pretend like I hadn’t seen them, and it would be the proof I needed that everything was aboveboard. That he didn’t want her back. That he wasn’t ending things with me just because I wasn’t ready to tell him all my deepest, darkest secrets.
It was immature, but I’m glad he’d gotten a good look at Wade. I’d done nothing wrong—Wade and I were nothing but platonic friends—but I wanted him to know that there could be someone else for me. Especially if he wasn’t there to explain—or apologize. In the end, he did neither. I still wasn’t sure what he’d wanted.
“Everything okay?” Wade called from the kitchen as I leaned hard on the door to close it. Passing the back staircase with my coffee, I looked up and watched it swirl to the top-floor attic, wondering again about the unmade bed and my vision of Anna during the séance. It was becoming increasingly difficult to decide what had been real and what hadn’t. But the Xanax tamped down my tapping. In fact, I was pretty sure my daily microdose was the only reason I wasn’t crying my eyes out over the way Jace had looked at me in the yard.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I said, passing into the kitchen, where Wade had retreated sometime during my stare-down with Jace. Wade leaned over the counter across from me, searching my face. The corners of my eyes burned with tears, but none fell.
“It’s not fine,” he said. “It’s not fine at all, darlin’. Did he tell you what he was up to last night?
“No.” I sniffed. “Although he might have been about to. He said he wanted to talk, but then he got a phone call.”
“A phone call? A phone call is more important than fixing y’all’s relationship?”
All I could do was smile weakly. I didn’t want to talk about Jace anymore. I told Wade he could take the Bronco into town and see the sights, but I secretly hoped he’d stay at the house with me. I had no desire to be anywhere, do anything.
I wandered upstairs to my bedroom and got dressed in fleece leggings and a roomy sweatshirt. Comfort clothes. While my body had technically recovered from the psychedelic trip, I felt weak—physically, mentally, and especially emotionally. Too bad Penny didn’t make house calls.
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I let my mind wander. Why was I here? What did I want?
Professionally, I came to write a history of this house and my family. But then Linus was murdered. I was arrested. Then came Danny’s murder. Jace said I’d been cleared of any wrongdoing. We never seemed to have any time to discuss it.
Personally, I’d been reunited with my one great love, but it felt like he’d been ripped away again. I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my stomach. It hurt, but there was nothing I could do about it. If Jace couldn’t get over the fact that I hadn’t told him I had a bona fide mental illness, if he didn’t believe I’d never do drugs willingly, then that was on him. I’d apologized. I’d vowed to be more open. If that wasn’t good enough, if he wanted to go back to Marina, I’d just have to accept it. I wasn’t going to chase him. I wasn’t strong enough.
Even if he didn’t want Marina back, I was starting to accept that I couldn’t be with someone who loved me one minute and turned on me when I needed him most. Jace had always been like a light switch. He was either “on” or “off.” Hot or cold. Loving or hateful. There was no in-between. He reminded me of my mother in that way.
There was nothing I could do to improve my personal life at this minute—I’d just have to wait and see where the pieces landed before I tried picking them up again. Maybe Oren was right, and I could still salvage my time here. The Historical Society would never allow me to shine a light on the horrors of Richmond House, but perhaps I had a bigger purpose now. Forget the book—maybe my quest for answers seven years ago was just the beginning. Richmond House wasn’t important to me. Anna could have it if she was Sterling’s true next of kin. But I’d be damned if I let everything get buried again.
“Start at the beginning,” I said aloud. “The beginning. The beginning.”
Thanks to Jace’s collection of documents, rare and mundane, and my college research project, I knew as much as I was ever going to know about Jonathan Richmond of Richmond & Reeves, Brighton, England. I knew about his grandson. The slaves. His Richmond House side hustle. I knew Sterling was an incestuous pedophile—but he was dead. He wasn’t the one keeping secrets anymore. That lay squarely on Eugenia’s shoulders. And Anna’s. How did Eugenia get entwined in the Richmond House story? I was going to find out. Now that I had something to focus on, I felt better than I had in days.
Tucking my feet into the slippers at the end of my bed, I steeled myself for another visit to Eugenia’s room. Whatever was in that…crawl space? Coffin? Dungeon? Whatever it was, I was ready to look inside. Walking across the hall, I put my hand on Eugenia’s door handle, almost expecting it to burn me like she’d cast a spell. No spell, but the door was…locked. Locked up tight.
Locked? Why was Eugenia’s door locked, and mine didn’t even allow for locking? It hadn’t been locked the last time, but maybe now she was taking precautions. Maybe she knew that I’d been in her room. My empty stomach shifted with guilt when I thought about how I’d violated her privacy in my quest for information. For all her quirks, Eugenia was a victim of Sterling’s. A victim of this house.
I jiggled the handle a few times, frustrated. To my left, I saw Wade coming up the main staircase, taking in all the crown molding—and molding in general. I’d been embarrassed about the portrait of Eugenia last night, but he hadn’t seemed fazed. He was Southern, after all. They might not be big on nudity, but Southerners took the cake when it came to weird family shit.
“What are you up to, darlin’? Nice house you got here.”
“Thanks.” The whispers of a plan began taking shape in my head.
“If you don’t mind, I think I’ll do a little exploring. Maybe take a walk?”
“I’d actually love to do a little exploring this morning,” I said calmly, preparing for the inevitable battle.
“Sounds good,” he said, noticing my hand gripping Eugenia’s door handle. “Whatcha got goin’ on there?”
“Wade…I don’t want to explain myself. But I need to get into this room. And it’s locked.”
Wade was quite handy with a locked door, as luck would have it. His father and brother were jewelers, and while one wouldn’t necessarily make a connection between jewelry and locksmithing, the men of Cook Jewelers were frequently called to open lockboxes and the like all over Shreveport. Wade had learned the ins and outs of lock picking at an early age, and I’d seen him do it numerous times—always backed by a solid moral reason, though.
“It’s probably locked for a reason, Greer,” he replied gently. I was no longer a “darlin’” now that my motives were sketchy.
“Wade, this is the master bedroom. My grandfather’s room. Eugenia’s now. I told you how she and my grandfather had a child out of wedlock, Anna. I’ve never—never—violated Eugenia’s privacy,” I lied, “but trust me when I say that this is necessary. I need to see what she’s hiding. She could be a threat to us.”
Wade drew his brows together in a look of disbelief. But thankfully, he began moving toward the door.
