a bear-skin hat that would never come.
All of which was irrelevant. Every moment of the past, every bad decision and terrible accident that led me to this point, was moot.
The only thing that mattered now was making one thing right, in a life gone horribly wrong. I had to make one damn thing right.
Who betrayed Dad? Joel’s partner, Richard Bonavie, or the blonde at the drop-off—Vanessa O’Neill?
The legal system might have gotten it wrong with me, my hands were bloody right down to the bone, but it wasn’t too late to get justice for my father. That’s why I was here, and the women in this house with me were the key to it all.
I turned off the light and planned on waiting until the house was quiet before looking around, but the work of the day pulled me down and I slept hard for the first time in six months.
For two days I tried my damnedest to get any one of the O’Neill women to talk to me about Vanessa. Savannah wasn’t talking to me at all. After that little moment in the hallway she’d gone into full hiding. Which was probably smart. But that left me with Katie, who when I’d asked her about her grandmother, had given me a blank look and left.
All this led me to believe that Vanessa hadn’t come here yet. And if she did - she wouldn’t be very welcome.
My plans for looking around at night had been derailed too, by the work I was doing during the day and the good food the O’Neill women were making.
Every night I tried to wait until the house got quiet so I could look around and every night I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
So, bright and early on Wednesday, I drove into town and found the hardware store. It was well-stocked for a town this size and what I couldn’t put in my cart—the tiller, chain saw and sod—I was able to have delivered.
“We can get you two more bags of cement,” the old man behind the counter said, his red plaid shirt straining at the buttons over his belly. “In fact, let me check in the warehouse, sometimes we keep overflow there.”
“Great,” I said, and the man tucked his pencil behind his ear and left and a woman slid into the old man’s spot.
“You that man working out at the Manor?” she asked, her long gray hair pulled into a ponytail, her eyes, behind glasses, bright and focused. Rabid, nearly.
“That would be me,” I said, cautiously.
“I told you, Doug!” she yelled, and another man, a younger version of the man in red plaid, appeared at her elbow.
“So?” she asked. “Is it true what they say?”
“What exactly do they say?” I asked, putting gloves and nails on the counter to be rung up.
“That Margot’s crazy,” the woman said.
“And Savannah’s a bitch,” Doug said bitterly, and the woman slapped his arm.
“Watch yourself,” she said. “There’s no need for name calling.”
Doug didn’t for a second seem sheepish and I had the urge to teach the boy some manners with my fists, but I knew an opportunity when I saw one.
If the O’Neills wouldn’t talk about the O’Neills, maybe I could get my news from another source. And there was nothing as far-reaching as small-town gossip.
“They seem fine enough,” I answered, leaning against the counter as if settling in for a nice chat. “My name is Matt.”
“Cheryl,” she said, smiling. “This is my boy, Doug.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, pouring it on a little thick, but Cheryl seemed to eat it up. “Now what’s this about Margot?”
“Well, people been saying it for years, that Margot buries money in the backyard.”
“No, I heard she stopped doing that,” Doug said. “On account of all those high schoolers who go back there to party.”
“You know that Garrett boy broke into the house, scared those women to pieces.”
I took note of the name and watched as the two seemed to forget I was there.
“Can you blame him?” Doug asked. “I wish I had the guts to get close to that house. I heard they’ve got this huge wall safe in the library filled with money and gems and shit.”
“Well, honey, if you’d been nicer to Savannah, maybe Margot wouldn’t have run you off when you tried,” Cheryl said and Doug rolled his eyes.
But the hair on my neck stood up and chill washed over my arms. “Gems?” I asked blankly, steering them back on course.
“Diamonds and such. Big ones.