Chương 6
“Mara, go inside.”
I stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because I need five minutes with your mother.”
Mom laughed sharply.
“Oh, now you need privacy.”
“Yes.”
Something in his face made her quiet.
I went inside because I did not trust myself to stay.
The kitchen still held evidence of a weekend that had lasted less than an hour.
A sliced tomato sat on the cutting board.
Kyle’s onions were gone.
Someone had opened a bag of tortilla chips and rolled the top down neatly with one of my wooden clothespins.
I closed cabinet doors.
I put the hamburger buns on the counter.
I picked up a wet dish towel from the floor.
Ordinary motions steadied me.
My phone rang.
Elise.
I let it ring out.
She called again immediately.
I answered.
“What?”
Her voice was different now.
No warmth.
No attempt at normal.
“Who contacted you?”
I stood still.
“What?”
“Someone sent you something, didn’t they?”
I looked toward the front windows.
Mom and Dad stood near the SUV.
Dad was speaking.
Mom had both arms folded tightly.
“How would you know that?”
Elise inhaled.
“Mara, listen to me.”
“No.”
“You need to understand there are things Linda does not know.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“She thinks I was just letting friends stay.”
“Were you?”
Silence.
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“How many people paid to use my house?”
“I can explain.”
“How many?”
“I don’t have an exact number.”
“You manage bookings for a living.”
“These weren’t bookings.”
“What were they?”
“Arrangements.”
I closed my eyes.
The distinction made me furious.
“Did you take money?”
“Yes.”
The admission was soft.
Almost practical.
“How much?”
“It varied.”
“How much total?”
“I don’t know off the top of my head.”
“Elise.”
“Maybe twelve thousand.”
My eyes opened.
The kitchen tilted without moving.
“Twelve thousand dollars.”
“Over months.”
“You rented out my house.”
“I was going to replace everything.”
“What does that even mean?”
“The cleaning charges, the maintenance, all of it.”
“You billed those to me.”
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
My free hand went numb.
“Why would you replace them later if I never noticed?”
She said nothing.
I understood the answer.
She had not planned to.
The lie had simply developed a future once she was caught.
I walked to the dining table and sat down.
“Who sent me the messages?”
“I don’t know.”
“You asked who contacted me.”
“Because someone has been threatening me.”
That changed the air.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What are they threatening?”
“To expose everything.”
I looked through the window at my mother.
“Everything meaning what?”
Elise breathed out slowly.
“The house wasn’t the only property.”
I said nothing.
“There were three others.”
“Other owners?”
“Yes.”
“Did you do this to them too?”
“For a while.”
The room seemed very quiet.
“How much money?”
“I can’t do this on the phone.”
“You are doing it on the phone.”
“Mara, please.”
“Did my mother know about the other houses?”
“No.”
The answer came fast enough that I believed it.
“She only knew about yours?”
“She knew I could get access to yours.”
“Why mine?”
Another silence.
This one felt different.
Not evasive.
Afraid.
“Why mine, Elise?”
“Because Linda told me you would never check.”
I stared at the wall.
“She said you were too busy.”
Elise continued quickly.
“She said you came down maybe once a month, that you barely looked at statements, that if anything broke you just paid for it.”
My mother had described me accurately enough to make theft convenient.
I could not decide which part hurt most.
“Why would she tell you that?”
“She was trying to help me.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I was in a bad place.”
“Stop.”
“I know it sounds—”
“Stop saying she was helping you when the thing she gave you belonged to me.”
Elise went silent.
Outside, Dad opened the SUV’s rear door and began taking luggage back out.
I stood.
“What is he doing?”
Elise said, “What?”
I barely heard her.
Dad placed Mom’s suitcase on the shell driveway.
Then her beach bag.
Then the hard-sided cooler she had packed.
Mom grabbed his arm.
He pulled free.
Not violently.
Decisively.
I went to the front door.
Dad shut the rear hatch.
He said something I could not hear.
Mom looked toward the house.
Toward me.
Dad got into the SUV alone.
The engine started.
For a second, I thought he was bluffing.
Then he backed out.
Mom stepped away from the vehicle.
The SUV turned onto the road and disappeared behind the dunes.
My mother stood beside her luggage in the heat.
Elise was still speaking in my ear.
“Mara?”
I watched Mom pick up the straw hat she had dropped.
“Mara, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“You need to hear the rest.”
I looked at my mother.
She looked smaller without Dad beside her.
Not innocent.
Not harmless.
Just smaller.
“What rest?”
Elise’s voice lowered.
“Linda didn’t just give me information.”
My chest tightened.
“She gave me copies of your owner statements.”
I gripped the doorframe.
“How?”
“She had access to your email.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“I saw them.”
“That’s impossible.”
“They were forwarded from your account.”
I looked down at my phone.
The house, the cleaning charges, the codes, the strangers, all of it suddenly seemed secondary.
“When?”
“Starting last fall.”
I could hear blood beating in my ears.
My mother reached the porch.
She stopped when she saw my face.
“Elise,” I said, “what exactly did my mother have access to?”
Elise did not answer immediately.
My mother stood three feet away, one hand wrapped around the telescoping handle of her suitcase, watching me with the rigid stillness of someone waiting for a verdict.
“What did she have access to?” I asked again.
“Your email, at least for a while.”
Mom’s mouth opened.
I held up one finger.
“Don’t.”
She closed it.
Elise said, “I don’t know how much.”
“You said statements were forwarded from my account.”
“They were.”
May you like
“Which account?”
“The Gmail you use for property stuff.”
