through the room. “You have to tell her what’s really going on.”
“I tried, but she wouldn’t listen. It’s not my fault she’s stubborn.”
“Make her listen,” Lucas demands, and the hairs on my arms prick.
“Just because you want to fuck her now,” Stone deadpans.
I peek around the corner as several heavy footsteps sound. Stone and Lucas are in each other’s faces, and Wyatt, with his wide-brimmed hat, pushes them apart.
“It’s more than that and you know it,” Lucas seethes. “You’d feel the same if it weren’t for the fact that you’re content being your father’s little bitch.”
Stone roars and moves forward. Wyatt shoves them away from each other again. “This is hardly helping. Save your pissing contest for later.” He eyes them, studying their stances. He must like what he sees because he steps back. “I agree with Lucas. We have to help her see what’s really going on. We aren’t being fair. We dragged her into this, now look what’s fucking happening.”
Stone lets out a sound of frustration, turns, and pulls his fist back to punch the wall. I step through the doorway, stopping him in his tracks. A myriad of emotions play over his face until he pushes past me, storming from the room. A few seconds later, the front door slams.
“What’s his problem?” I ask, pretending I didn’t hear their conversation. I don’t think any of what they just said to each other was for my benefit. Something else is going on with these notes, but I’m also not convinced it isn’t Jacobs related.
“Explaining just one of his many problems would take forever,” Wyatt says, sighing.
At first, I think he means it as a joke, but he doesn’t laugh. I drop the dustpan on the floor and go to work sweeping. Lucas and Wyatt pick up the bigger pieces of the broken lamp and rearrange things in the room, so it doesn’t look like a bomb went off. When they drag a broken cupboard outside, I wait until I hear the front door open and close, and then I run to the loose plank in the wall. I feel inside, and my fingers close around a set of keys. I let out a long sigh. My heart’s been in my throat this whole time waiting to make sure that this was still here. The one piece needed to get to my father’s most important papers. “Thank fuck,” I whisper.
I slip the keys into my pocket and continue sweeping up every last bit of glass but end up getting a big pile of dust bunnies and dirt too. It’s been ages since anyone has cleaned up in here. I quickly sweep everything into the dustpan and head to the kitchen to dump it in the trash.
It would be impossible to figure out if anyone took anything from here. My guess is they were looking for something specific and didn’t find it. In that case, it’s a damn good thing they didn’t find the keys. Though, if they did, they wouldn’t know the hiding place.
Or this could be something else entirely. Just another scare tactic like with my dorm and the letter I got in the mail.
I don’t know what they’re referring to in the last two notes though. The first said, GOOD GIRL. The second, STUPID GIRL. They’re obviously referring to me, but what exactly are they referencing? A cold shiver runs through me. If they’re picking apart my life, then they must be watching me too.
I’m so deep in thought about being watched that when the door slams behind Lucas, I jump out of my skin, a scream working its way up my throat. I stop it before I let the whole thing out, but Wyatt and Stone run back into the house as Lucas places his hands on my shoulders to calm me. “Christ,” I breathe out when I’m no longer worried I’m going to scream bloody murder.
Stone gazes at the house and walks right back out. No doubt he thinks he’s going to catch a disease just by being in here. Unless it’s the poor disease, which isn’t even a fucking thing, he’s wrong.
“There’s really not much we can do here right now,” Lucas says. “You want to go back to the house?”
I glance around the room. I can feel my father everywhere. I’m not saying I had the best childhood. Obviously, that would be a lie. But I am saying that I miss him. Being here brings me that much closer to him too. It