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She glanced at it. “Scrap paper?”
“Did you suddenly take up arts and crafts?”
Her eyebrows pulled into a frown. “No?”
I sat heavily at the desk. “What’s Karmichael’s password?”
I waited for her to tell me no. For her to clam up and get protective of the computer.
“Seven-three-eight-one.”
I typed it in, and the screen switched to Karmichael’s home screen.
It was a photo of him, my mom, and my dad. “What the hell is this?”
Mom looked over my shoulder. “What? The photo? We took it when we went on vacation about a year ago. Right before your father met Miranda.”
“You don’t think it’s weird that this is the home screen on your computer?”
She paused. “No? Why would I?”
I stared at her. “Because you’re standing in the middle of your ex and your new husband!”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Vaughn Weston, if you’re insinuating there was something more than friendship going on between us, then you can go wash your mouth out with soap. You of all people know better than that.”
Maybe I did, but I couldn’t stop staring at that cut-out piece of cardstock.
Something didn’t add up here.
I opened the print queue and found the printer history, scrolling back through the list of already printed documents. They were all clearly labeled, most of them work documents.
I paused on one that was just called ‘Untitled.’
I hit reprint and then held my fucking breath, praying I was wrong.
The printer spat out a piece of paper with the duplicate of a file that had been printed the day before we’d received the last note threatening Rebel’s life.
I knew even before it finished printing I was right.
My mom’s sharp intake of breath when I handed her the paper only confirmed it.
I couldn’t even look at her for fear of what I might do. Anger bubbled up inside me, so swiftly it quickly felt out of control. I gripped the table. “Why?”
“Why, what? What is this?”
I snapped my head around to stare at her. “Did you kill my father?”
She stared down at the paper in her hands, her fingers trembling. “I don’t understand.”
“Did you kill my father?” I asked again.
“Of course not! He was my best friend, Vaughn. I loved that man more than life itself.”
It’s like the same thought dawned on both of us at the same time. But I was the one who voiced it.
“Which Karmichael knew. Which we all knew! The three of you were always together! I remember my friends at school asking if the three of you were in some sort of three-way relationship because you always included Dad in everything the two of you did.”
“Vaughn,” she said quietly, reaching out for me. “Your father was my best friend. But that was why we broke up. You know that. I want to say we should have never gotten married, except then I wouldn’t have you. But that aside, we should have just stayed friends. We should have never been more. When Karmichael came along, I had to call it off. He was the one I was always meant to be with. It didn’t mean I didn’t still love your father, though. He was always my best friend.”
