Chương 11
A grill.
An overnight plan.
Nothing about it had been simple.
“Did you give her money for the party?”
Another silence.
“Linda.”
“Five hundred dollars.”
I stared at the floor.
The anger I had felt toward Rose changed shape once more.
Entitlement was still there.
But beneath it, something else was beginning to show.
Money trouble.
Borrowing.
A party she could not afford.
A story about cash hidden in a dead woman’s house.
I did not yet know what those pieces meant.
I only knew they belonged on the same table.
“Claire?”
“I have to go.”
“Please don’t make decisions while you’re angry.”
I looked toward the empty shelf.
“That advice would have been useful before Rose took my keys.”
I ended the call.
Then I called Daniel.
He answered from his car.
“I’m leaving the sheriff’s office.”
“Is Rose with you?”
“Yes.”
“I need you to ask her one question.”
Rose said something in the background.
Daniel lowered the radio.
“What?”
“Ask her how much money she owes.”
Silence filled the line.
Then Rose said, loudly enough for me to hear, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
I stood.
“Tell her Melissa talked.”
Another silence.
Longer this time.
Daniel said, “Rose?”
She did not answer.
“Claire,” he said slowly, “what did Melissa tell you?”
“That Rose told people there might be money in my mother’s house.”
I heard Daniel inhale.
Rose said, “That’s not what I said.”
I gripped the phone.
“Then tell me what you said.”
“I made a joke.”
Of course.
“What joke?”
“That old people hide money.”
“My mother wasn’t old.”
“I know.”
“Did you mention the lockbox?”
Rose did not answer.
Daniel said her name.
Finally she whispered, “Maybe.”
I closed my eyes.
“And how did you know about it?”
Another pause.
“You showed it to me once.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember.”
“That’s because it didn’t happen.”
“Claire, I saw it.”
“How?”
Rose’s breathing became uneven.
Then Daniel said, very quietly, “Rose.”
Something in his tone made me open my eyes.
“What?” she snapped.
“How did you know it was upstairs?”
She stopped.
Daniel’s voice changed.
Not angry.
Worse.
Certain.
“You’ve been in that house before.”
Rose said nothing.
I felt the floor beneath my feet become strangely unreliable.
“When?” I asked.
No answer.
“Rose.”
Her voice finally came through.
Small.
“Last month.”
I stopped breathing.
Daniel swore under his breath.
“You went there last month?”
“Just once.”
“How?”
Neither of us needed to ask what I meant.
There had been only one way.
The key.
The same key I had believed disappeared days ago.
Rose had taken it before.
Used it.
Returned it.
And learned she could do so without anyone noticing.
“What were you doing there?” I asked.
Her answer came after a silence so long that I knew the truth would be worse than whatever I had already imagined.
“I needed somewhere to meet someone.”
“For what?”
Rose did not answer.
Daniel’s turn signal clicked steadily through the silence.
I could hear road noise beneath it and imagined him driving with both hands tight on the wheel while his sister stared out the passenger window.
“Rose.”
“I said I needed somewhere private.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It was personal.”
“You took my key, entered my mother’s house, and used it for something you still think I don’t deserve to know about.”
“I didn’t damage anything that time.”
The sentence was so perfectly Rose that I had to close my eyes.
Daniel said, “Just tell her.”
“I was meeting a man.”
My first thought was absurdly ordinary.
Rose had dated enough men that this explanation seemed almost disappointingly simple.
Then she said, “He wasn’t someone I was seeing.”
I waited.
“He was someone I owed money to.”
The pieces on the table shifted again.
“How much?”
“Claire, it doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
Daniel’s voice cut in.
“How much, Rose?”
She muttered something.
“What?”
“Eight thousand.”
Daniel swore.
I sat down.
“Eight thousand dollars?”
“It wasn’t eight at first.”
“What does that mean?”
“It started smaller.”
“How small?”
“Two.”
“Two thousand?”
“Yes.”
“What did you borrow it for?”
She went quiet again.
Daniel said, “Answer.”
“I was behind.”
“On what?”
“Everything.”
The word cracked in the middle.
“Rent, cards, my car, just everything.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“You borrowed two thousand dollars from some man to pay bills?”
“He wasn’t some man.”
“Who was he?”
“His name is Evan.”
“Last name?”
“I’m not giving you his last name.”
A laugh escaped me.
It was not amusement.
“Rose, there is currently a police investigation involving my house.”
“He has nothing to do with Tyler.”
“You do not know that.”
“I do.”
“How?”
“Because Evan wasn’t at the party.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Daniel said, “Rose, stop fighting every question.”
“I’m not fighting.”
“You are turning every answer into something we have to drag out of you.”
“I’m embarrassed, okay?”
Her voice rose.
“I am unbelievably embarrassed.”
For the first time, I heard something other than panic or defensiveness.
Shame.
Raw enough that it made me hesitate.
Then I looked at the torn screen.
“Keep going.”
Rose inhaled.
“Evan lends money.”
Daniel said, “Professionally?”
“No.”
The single word carried enough meaning.
I stood again.
“Rose, what exactly does that mean?”
“It means he lends money.”
“To people who can’t get bank loans?”
“Sometimes.”
“With interest?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You borrowed from him and you don’t know the interest?”
“I know what I owe.”
“That is not the same thing.”
She snapped, “I didn’t exactly sit down with a financial adviser, Claire.”
Daniel said, “Enough.”
Rose fell silent.
“How did two thousand become eight?” he asked.
“I missed payments.”
“What payments?”
“Weekly.”
I felt my stomach turn.
“Weekly?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred.”
Daniel gave a short, disbelieving laugh.
“That’s impossible.”
“I know.”
“How long has this been going on?”
May you like
“About four months.”
I stood by the dresser and stared at my mother’s photograph.
