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I walk over to the vanity, running my hand across the marble top until five streaks appear in the dust.
Is this where Ainsley sat the night before her wedding to Howard? What did she think about when she held that white dress against her body? Was she a pawn in rich men’s games?
Just like me.
With a roar, I swipe the dusty tubes of lipstick and crystal vials onto the floor. Several smash, spreading broken shards and colored dust across the pristine rug.
I won’t be their pawn.
I won’t play the role I’ve been cast.
I’ll burn the whole fucking game to the ground.
I can’t stand to be in the room a moment longer. Not without my liquid courage. I reach the narrow staircase and scramble up into the eyrie. It’s dark inside, the only light from the pale moon and the smudge of city lights glowing an unnatural green against the churning ocean beyond. The wraparound window looks straight down the ridge of the hill, out to the end of the bay and the Beaumont Hills Cemetery that guards it. The dead farewell their spirits as they glide over the water.
I swallow once, twice, three times. I taste the grit of my grave dirt.
Is the fact Howard Malloy’s tunnel emerges into the very cemetery where I was buried alive, where my father still remains buried, a coincidence? Or does it have a deeper meaning? This thread connects my two fathers – the man who purchased me, who raised me, and the man who sold me, who gifted me his cruelty.
I stand with my toes pressed up against the glass, staring down at the hideous succulent garden so I don’t have to look at the cemetery. I let vertigo wrap its trembling wings around my body and draw me close. My arms spread wide, and I imagine falling through the window and taking flight, soaring over the city and far far away from my murderous sister and my boyfriend who wants to have a baby.
I remember the night I came up here and talked to Eli while he sat on the wall, back when he thought I was Mackenzie. A sob claws its way up my esophagus and trembles from my lips.
I wish Eli was here right now.
I wish they were all here.
My boys. My princes. My loves.
I wish they could hold me and tell me everything would be okay. I wish they could push back the night and sing the stars into existence again, because everything I see is black and cold and absolute.
But the path I’ve chosen is a lonely one. My father taught me that. Even with great love at your side, you still had to walk alone.
So morose. What did I come here for? That’s right, alcohol.
I grab a few bottles from an open crate and stack them under my arms, then scramble back down the stairs and head for the door. Once more into the chaos—
Wait a second…
The drawers in Ainsley Malloy’s bedside cabinet are hanging open.
I didn’t leave those drawers open. I’ve never even approached that side of the bed – not tonight, nor any other night. I hardly ever go into this room, and when I do, I don’t hang around their bed. Gross.
Except for tonight, where I sat at the vanity, I always go straight for Ainsley’s closet or the eyrie.
So who the fuck opened those drawers?
It’s possible one of the others was snooping around up here and left them open. Eli does love to learn secrets, and George is too curious for her own good. But… I just didn’t believe it. No one in this house would come up here without telling me.
I swallow down the panic that swells in my chest as another memory assails me. My beautiful, brave kitty with a slash in her side. GO AWAY written on the wall in her blood. Mackenzie’s old bedroom trashed. Statues broken, dolls with their heads staved in.
Did I check this room after the break-in? Were the drawers open then?
Was Mackenzie in here, looking for something?
I yank out the drawer and slide my hand around inside. It contains a jumble of items – discarded jewelry, pill packets, more makeup and hair curlers, spare watch straps, mobile phone chargers. Flowery notecards with phone numbers and notes from friends. Nothing that would tell me what the intruder might’ve been looking for or what they might’ve taken.
And I wonder…
