appeared, its letters caught in the Caravan’s headlights:
WELCOME TO ROCKPORT
POP. 4,572
WE MAKE YOU KINDLY WELCOME
Eileen grimaced as Claire slowed the van.
“The hell,” she muttered.
The carved wooden creatures on the sign were bad enough—a mermaid, gesturing toward the town name, a seahorse set among bubbles, a row of shells at the sign’s base. Each was carved with cartoonish proportions, and wind, rain, and salt had worn the paint away to a thin, chipped base. It was the slogan that got under Eileen’s skin: We make you kindly welcome.
Maybe the greeting was meant to be nice, but to Eileen’s ears it was sinister. Like the townspeople who’d written it had left off the tail end: We make you kindly welcome, and you’ll never leave.
A chill passed through Eileen.
“What?” Claire said, glancing over.
“Nothing.”
She shook it off as they moved on, kindly welcomed into the town of Rockport. The coastline had become visible, peeking through a line of ocean-facing bungalows. The road sloped upward, forcing Claire to push harder on the gas. The houses grew farther apart, allowing wider views of the water, and then the rocky ground grew so steep the bungalows disappeared altogether. Still, Shoreline Road continued upward. Eileen realized they were making their way up a bluff. The rain was spitting against the van, and Claire notched up the wipers and turned on the Caravan’s brights. At last the incline flattened out, and in the gathering rain, Eileen squinted to make out the street sign ahead: LARAMIE COURT. She scratched through the last of her mental directions: Turn right on Laramie, and the destination will be on your left.
The destination.
2270 Laramie Court.
Claire cut the Caravan’s engine, and the sisters stared ahead.
The house was bigger than Eileen had imagined. Way bigger than any of the places on the coastline below. It was built in the Victorian style, complete with gables and a wraparound porch. Its two stories were fitted with rows of wide windows, set in splintering, baby blue wood. On the house’s far right side, a domed turret poked out. The house backed up to the coast, its rear windows overlooking the Pacific. The place was dark, deserted. No sign of life. There were no neighbors. This was the only home at the top of the bluff, built amid a small wilderness of rocks and evergreens.
I had an uncle, Eileen thought.
For the first time that thought seemed real. Because here she was, in front of a real house. Eileen had an uncle her mom had never told her about.
Had Mom not told her for a good reason?
And the secret—had Mom had a reason for keeping that, too?
Eileen could stop right now. She could force herself into the driver’s seat and head south, away from the coast, back to Emmet. Murphy would whine and Claire would raise holy hell, but Eileen was eighteen and the only one who could inherit. In the end heading home affected her alone.
Heading inside this house? That affected them all.
What was waiting for them in there? What had Mr. Knutsen meant by documents? What if Claire or Murphy found something that clued them in to what Eileen had known for two years? The secret. Mom’s secret. A secret that had ruined everything.
Head back, said a voice in her head. Eileen wasn’t sure if it belonged to fear or better judgment. Some days those two sounded exactly alike.
Head back to what? said another, sturdier voice. Your drafty bedroom. Your boozy nights. Your empty drawing desk.
The thumping began anew in Eileen’s chest, beating beneath her leather jacket:
Ch-change, ch-change, ch-change.
Eileen yanked the keys from the ignition. She pocketed them and opened the passenger door, resolved.
She had an uncle named Patrick Enright, and she was about to break into his house.
ELEVEN Claire
Leenie. Leenie … Eileen!”
Now that Claire was here, parked in front of her inheritance, her insides were turning graceless pirouettes. The sight of the house had cemented Claire to the seat, causing her jaw to unhinge like a Halloween skeleton’s.
Claire wasn’t sure what she’d expected from 2270 Laramie Court. A weathered farmhouse, maybe, or a slipshod starter home. A double-wide with a chicken wire fence. What else could you expect from a house in small-town Oregon? Those were the everyday homes Claire saw in Emmet.
Not here, though.
Rockport wasn’t a mere small town, but a coastal one, bordered by vast ocean. And this house, while it wasn’t Downton Abbey, certainly wasn’t slipshod. It was two stories of imposing bulk, outfitted with a glimmering, domed turret. This house intimated history, money, and