Page 7 of Bitter House

Fear grips me somewhere deep in my belly, quickly replaced by anger. How dare they! If someone is trying to scare me, there’s only one person I can think of who could benefit from that.

I storm out of the kitchen and up the stairs, taking two at a time, and rap my knuckles on the wood of his door. I’m furious by the time he pulls it open, one eye closed, torso shirtless, hair a mess.

“Yeah?”

“It won’t work.”

“Good morning to you, too,” he grumbles.

I slam the letter into his chest. “Whatever your plan is, whatever you hoped would happen when I read this, you’re wrong. If you’re trying to scare me away from here, it won’t work. I’m not going to be run off by your little games. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what you do. So you might as well just give up now. You won’t win.”

“Win?” he asks under his breath, turning the letter over and reading it slowly, rubbing a fist over his eye to brush away the sleep. “I…” When he looks up, his expression is unreadable, jaw slack. “You think I wrote this?” He flips it over, checking the back. “Where did you even get this?”

“Don’t play dumb. I know you left it on the porch for me to find.”

He looks down at the paper again, shaking his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t write this. I’ve never seen it before.”

The defiance in his voice almost makes me believe him—almost.

“Stop it. I know?—”

He laughs. “Stop what? I’m serious, B. It wasn’t me.”

“Don’t call me B.”

“Everyone calls you B.” He holds the letter out toward me, and I snatch it back.

“My friends call me B, and you are not a friend.”

“Fine.” His lips form a hard line. “I didn’t write the letter. Believe what you want.”

“Who else could’ve? The gate is locked. It was on the porch, not in the mailbox. No one else had access.”

His jaw drops open as if I’m being ridiculous. “No one else had access? Are you serious? So many people had access! Jane, Cate, and Lily were literally just here. Mom has the code, too. And the gardener. The maintenance man. The mail woman. Who knows who all Vera gave the code to. It’s not just me.”

I pause. He’s not wrong. Over the years, countless people have been given the gate code, which hasn’t changed for as long as I can remember. Still…the mail woman has no reason to want me to be afraid of this house. Cole does.

“Well, what do you think it means?” I ask, studying the letter again.

“Sounds like she had secrets, and someone plans to expose them,” he says plainly, clearly not concerned. His voice goes dry and sarcastic as he says, “Someone who obviously doesn’t understand how blackmail works.”

“It’s someone trying to scare me.”

He twists his lips in thought, reaching across the bed and grabbing a shirt to throw on. “I think that’s a bit dramatic.”

“Keep your doors locked?”

“A good reminder, don’t you think?” He nods, walking past me and into his bathroom, leaving the door open.

I stay put, confused about what is happening until I hear his electric toothbrush running. “What secrets could Vera have possibly had?”

It takes him a moment to answer as he spits and pauses the toothbrush. “Probably sex stuff.”

I scowl. “Stop.”

He laughs, turning the toothbrush back on, and I storm from the room. As per usual, he’s absolutely no help.

CHAPTER FOUR

---