Page 47 of House of Lies

“You were listening to my calls, weren’t you?” I set my glass down and toss my hair out of my face with a flick of my neck. “Do you not understand the concept of privacy? Or didn’t they teach you that at One-Percent Preparatory?”

“I was passing by,” he says, and without a fucking trace of contrition. “The next time you have a private conversation, consider speaking more quietly.”

I bite the inside of my lip so hard I taste copper in my mouth. But I wash it down with a sip of the cabernet. The smell of cooking lasagna is permeating the air, and my stomach lets out a muted rumble of appreciation.

How is it possible to be so infuriated by someone? I wish I had the strength to choke him. Going around eavesdropping. What the hell did he hear?

I spoke about Mom.

Did he hear that too?

I shift in my seat, biting back a wince of pain. Day two, and I’m nowhere closer to discovering how this man knew my mother.

It’s now or never.

“How much did you hear?” I mumble, dropping my head and staring at him through my lashes.

“Enough to know that I’m not the only one you disrespect.”

Annoyance bristles inside me, but I smother it. “He’s a penniless wino with a gambling addiction. Why the hell should I respect him when he only ever calls me to ask for money?”

Remington tips his chin down, creating a dark shadow over his eyes. “He’s your father. He brought you into this world.”

“And that gives him the right to treat me like an ATM?”

His eyes narrow. “He doesn’t have a job?”

“He’s had quite a few. But he has a tendency to arrive drunk to work, if he arrives at all.”

“Maybe if you took the time to figure out what’s gone wrong in his life, to see things from his perspective, you wouldn’t be so judgmental.”

“I know what’s gone wrong,” I snap, glaring at Ethan as I take a long swallow from my wine. “My mother divorced him.”

“Because of the drinking?”

“And the gambling. Oh, did I forget to mention he emptied my college fund to pay back his debts?”

Ethan is silent.

I’m fucking furious. I look away, take another sip of wine, and put the glass back on the island, swiveling it on its base as I pick my next words.

“It got worse when Mom disappeared.”

Ethan takes a sip of his wine. I’m watching him out of the corner of my eye, trying to read his face, but he’s a blank slate. “Disappeared?”

“Yeah.” I sigh, and force myself to stare him in the eyes, despite how my heart begins to hammer inside my chest. “Happened a couple of months ago. She just…vanished one night. Her name was Rebecca Monroe.”

I study him intently, but he’s keeping a straight face like a seasoned poker player.

“You reported it to the police?”

I give him a grim smile. “Of course.”

His eyebrows lift. “And…?”

My heart is beating double time, my palms sweaty. He seems so calm, almost as if this doesn’t involve him in the slightest. But there’s no way my mother had an appointment with him and he didn’t know about it. Rich jerks like him have to be good at record keeping, don’t they?

“Looked like she ran away, so they opened a missing person case.” I shake my head. “But that’s not what happened. She would never abandon me like that. Even the note she left sounded nothing like her.”

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