excited bubbling in my gut. Until the house went unconditional, I couldn’t give hope a voice. Better to believe that everything could fall through tomorrow.
Anything more was an unexpected bonus.
“Someone made an offer?” Rhona asked.
I nodded. “It will nearly cover Mum’s gambling debt.”
“I thought the sale was meant to cover the whole thing?”
“Yeah, well, interest has accrued in that time. Once Roy’s commission is taken out and lawyers are paid, I should only have five thousand left to pay off. I can manage that.”
Her expression turned downright murderous.
“It’s fine. Really. If this all goes through, I’ll have one less problem to worry about.”
“You have so much on your plate already,” Rhona murmured.
She was angry on my behalf, and that meant the world. I lifted a shoulder. “I’m unsure if I’ve ever not had anything on my plate. Maybe one day. Think of the two of us suntanning on some island after winning Grids.”
“We’re redheads. We’d burn and peel. But Andie, you know the tribe is here to help you, right? Not just for you to help us. You’ll need a lawyer for the deal. We’ve got at least seven stewards who are lawyers. And why pay interest on the outstanding amount when you could borrow from the tribe and pay back what’s owed?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t do that.”
“Because you like to do everything alone?”
My lips twitched. “Ouch.”
“It’s true.”
Wade excluded… yeah, okay. Herc pointed that quality out as my weakness almost immediately. “Point taken. Wouldn’t that be kind of unethical though?”
“You can’t fight a battle on two fronts.”
Three fronts, at least. “I’d pay it off as soon as possible. We could have a steward lawyer draw up a contract, so everything is legally binding.”
This would save me so much money. I could be free of Mum’s debt in a matter of months.
Rhona looped an arm around my neck. “Whatever. Do what you gotta do. But we’re here for you too.”
I kissed her cheek. “Love you, sister-cousin.”
She laughed. “Dad-uncles. Aunty-mums. How the fuck did we end up in this shit pile?”
Good question.
We walked up the manor stairs.
“I talked to Pascal before leaving for pack lands,” I said low. “She said Herc intended to tell us the truth before his will ever went into effect.”
Rhona missed a step, but quickly recovered. “I knew it.”
“He didn’t mean for you, either of us, to find out that way.”
“But he still chose you.” She frowned.
I shoved down the memory of Pascal’s other words. “Maybe he just couldn’t stand concealing the truth anymore. Oh, and Pascal wondered if our grandparents’ deaths convinced Herc and Savannah to hide the pregnancy. No one saw her for three months and assumed it was to do with her MS diagnosis.”
“That’s… I mean, I can almost understand that mentality. I want to hide you. I don’t want you in the spotlight or for you to be under so much stress. But why not come out with the truth when you were stolen? Or even years later.”
I understood the pressure of maintaining image better now. “Because they’d already hidden it for so long. Secrets get like that. You become more scared of the time that’s gone by than the secret itself.”
“Sometimes you say stuff and I imagine you with a beard and a staff.”
“Like Gandalf?”
“Who’s Gandalf?”
“That’s disgusting. Educate yourself.” I paused outside the office. “Hold on, I need to grab my jacket. The meeting room gets cold.”
I strode into the office, rounding the desk. I paused at the sight of partly open drawers. “Someone has been in here.”
Rhona pushed off the doorframe. “You left them closed?”
“I didn’t have a lot of space in my bedroom back in Queen’s Way. Unless I closed the drawers all the way, I’d always bang my hip. It’s just a habit now, but I’m certain everything was closed. I mean, not that anything in here is secret.”
My mouth dried, thinking of the journals. I extracted the key from my pocket and crouched to unlock the locked drawer. I exhaled loudly.
They were still here.
“I don’t like that someone was digging around,” Rhona said, eyes narrowing. “It’s not that they would have found anything. It’s that they did it at all. Does someone think you’re hiding something?”
If they were smart. “Maybe they knew more of Herc’s secrets.”
“You think Dad had other secrets?”
No matter what Pascal recollected from the rock-climbing incident, the words Herc exchanged with Murphy were still a mystery. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“I’m an open book.”
I pulled the journals free. “You’re anything but an open book. No one would