Page 9 of Devil's Riches

As she worked away at the injured spot, I settled my weight into the chair and tried to think of a way to bring up my uncle. I needed to do it without giving away anything about what I’d discovered down in the bunker.

“Do you remember much about Mom’s brother?” I finally asked.

Colette stopped moving. “You mean Gregory?”

“Yeah. I was thinking about him earlier tonight, and I realized I never really knew him. It feels wrong.”

“I didn’t really know him either,” she said lightly. “Why don’t you ask your mother about him?”

“She’s away right now, remember? Fashion Week in Shanghai.”

“They have phones in China.”

“I know, but I don’t want to bother her while she’s over there,” I replied. “Besides, you’ve worked here for over thirty years, so you must’ve known Greg a bit, right?”

A silence thick as mud fell on the room. I’d obviously struck a nerve.

Colette picked up a Steri-Strip and placed it firmly on the wound on the back of my head. Then she finally spoke up again. “I’ll be frank with you, Nate. I was never particularly fond of your uncle.”

“Why not?”

She bristled. “I’d rather not say. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”

“Just tell me. I don’t care.”

Colette let out a short sigh. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but only because I know you won’t drop it until I do.” She leaned over to grab another strip. “Your uncle was… strange. He wasn’t very nice, and honestly, he was a bit creepy as well.”

“How so?”

She hesitated for a moment. “I was twenty-four when I came to work here on the estate, and I remember being told that I was ten years older than Gregory, so he would’ve been fourteen and your mother would’ve been thirteen. I can’t say I was expecting much from a teenage boy—you know what they can be like—but Gregory was still quite difficult for me to deal with. Your mother and your grandparents were always lovely and spoke to me like I was a member of the family. But your uncle…” She trailed off for a few seconds. “He wasn’t exactly rude. He just never spoke to me unless he absolutely had to. Even then he was very abrupt, and he always had a sour look on his face. He didn’t seem to have many friends, either. He spent most of his time locked away in his room.”

“So he was antisocial.”

“Very much so. But that’s not all.” Colette paused again. “He was an extraordinarily handsome young man. He had the same gorgeous blue eyes that you have. Same hair and bone structure too. A boy with looks like that could have any girl he wanted. Or boy, if that was his taste. But he never seemed interested in anyone, and I don’t remember him having a single girlfriend or boyfriend as long as he lived here. Sometimes your mother’s friends would visit after school or on weekends, and they’d fawn all over him when they saw him, but he ignored all of them. Even the prettiest ones.”

“Wouldn’t he be more of a creep if he hit on all of Mom’s friends instead of ignoring them?”

Colette shook her head as she leaned over to dig around in the first aid kit again. “I haven’t told you why I thought he was creepy yet.”

“Oh. Did something happen?”

“Yes and no. It’s hard to explain because he didn’t necessarily do anything wrong. It was just something that gave me a very strange feeling about him.”

“What was it?”

She was quiet for a moment. “One day, about a year after I started working here, I was cleaning the windows on the third floor. I must’ve cleaned them a little too well because a little bird flew into one of them. It happened right in front of me. Gave me quite a shock,” she finally said. “I love animals, and I couldn’t stand the thought of the poor thing being hurt, so I went outside to see if it was okay. Sometimes they just daze themselves for a while when they hit windows, you see. Unfortunately, this poor bird was dead. By the time I got to it, it was already cold and stiff as a board.”

“Okay.” I frowned, wondering where this story was going. What the fuck could a dead bird possibly have to do with my uncle? He didn’t make it fly into the window.

“I started to get quite emotional, because I felt responsible for the bird’s death,” Colette said. “I know I’m very sappy, but I can’t help it. I just love animals so much. Even the little ones.”

“I know.”

“So anyway, I decided to bury the poor thing somewhere, because I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving it there on the ground. As I was looking for a spot in the garden, your uncle approached me. It was one of the only times he ever spoke to me. He told me that he would bury the bird for me, because he could tell I was upset, and he thought it would be easier if I didn’t have to see it anymore.”

I lifted a brow. “That was nice of him.”

“Yes. It was uncharacteristically sweet of him, and I remember being very surprised by it,” Colette said. “Anyway, I said yes and tried to put the whole incident out of my mind. Then, about an hour later, I decided to trim one of the indoor plants your grandparents had in the foyer at the time, because one of them was shedding leaves all over the floor. I went into one of the garden sheds to find some secateurs, and I found your uncle in there.”

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