were nine letters total, composed in various handwritten scrawls and on different kinds of stationery. Nine letters from several strangers, and Eileen knew the shortest of them by heart:
Bitch,
We know it was him. You defended a murderer, and one day you will pay for your great sin.
No one had signed the letters. Eileen guessed if she were to draw a Venn diagram, “People Who Write Hate Mail” would be a perfect overlap with “Goddamn Cowards.” No outside space.
Did that mean it wasn’t a Venn diagram?
The point was, the letters were bad, and they made Eileen realize, sharply, how bad people could be.
Here was what she’d pieced together, after she’d read the letters many times over:
These people were accusing her mom, Leslie, of defending a man they called Mark. And this Mark was a murderer. Each letter-writer knew this for a fact. Mark Enright was a cold-blooded killer, and Leslie had taken his side, and she was going to pay one day for these sins. The element that varied from letter to letter was the hypothesis for why Eileen’s mom had done these things. Some wrote she’d been deceived, or misled. Some said she’d been beguiled by “sexual sin.” (One of them actually said that, like a televangelist: “sexual sin.”) However, the majority of letter-writers were of the opinion that Leslie Sullivan was as guilty as the murderer named Mark. They wrote she was probably in on the killing of Mr. Enright, too. Those were the writers who included the most vivid prophecies of Leslie’s fate—how she’d burn in hell or die of cancer or, best of the lot, be murdered herself.
“Whoso sheddeth man’s blood,” read one, “by man shall his blood be shed.”
Straight from the Bible.
Eileen wasn’t religious, but she recognized that much. Quoting the Bible, telling a woman she deserved to die. And these people could sleep at night.
Eileen hadn’t slept, though. Not for days. Those letters had given her an answer to a question she’d never asked.
Eileen looked different from her sisters. That had been obvious since she was a kid. It was hard to mistake their blue eyes, or to miss Murphy’s fiery curls and Claire’s blond bun. And then there was Eileen, with her black coffee eyes and hair. The family’s recessive genes had blatantly passed her over, and Eileen had been okay with that for a while. It made her unique, and she’d liked that.
Until she’d found the letters.
Until she’d put together the pieces, and everything made perfect, horrible sense:
Eileen didn’t look like pictures of her dad, because he wasn’t her dad.
She didn’t look like her sisters, because they were only half related.
She’d noted the dates on those letters: 2002, the year of her birth. She could put two and two together. For months Eileen had believed she wasn’t John Sullivan’s kid. She was the daughter of a murderer.
She didn’t know where this Mark had run off to, but she’d guessed why her mom had married John Sullivan so soon. She’d figured out, too, where the murders took place. One of those letter-writers had been brave enough to label their letter with a return address. They’d written from a town called Rockport, Oregon.
All it took was a Google search of the town, plus “murder,” plus “Mark,” and Eileen had found out a whole lot. About Mr. and Mrs. Enright and their deaths, the trial, Mark’s acquittal, and how a woman named Leslie Clark had defended him on the stand. Eileen had even found Mark Enright’s artwork.
Eileen knew everything. She hadn’t needed Cathy’s version of things.
Mr. Knutsen, by contrast, had told Eileen something new: John Sullivan was really John Enright—not a random dude her mom had married, but Eileen’s uncle. As for Mom … she’d had a thing for Enright boys, hadn’t she?
Eileen still didn’t know what to make of that development. She was processing, and she needed this house and its contents to do that. Maybe Patrick or one of his brothers had left behind a clue, a confession, anything that would give Eileen a definitive answer.
Because if she hadn’t known about John Enright, what else had she missed? Or gotten wrong? What if the horrible truth she believed wasn’t true?
Eileen was sick of the secret. She wanted solid proof. Either she was Mark Enright’s kid, or she wasn’t. Her heart beat with possibility. The chance of a no.
Ch-change, ch-change, ch-change.
Sure, she hadn’t wanted her sisters to know about the murders, but they still hadn’t learned Eileen’s possible connection to the story. She could keep