Page 11 of Devil's Riches

“Hm. Yeah.” I pressed my lips into a tight, grim line. My mother was strong and brave, sure, but she was also hiding a lot of shit from me and the rest of the world. There was no way she didn’t know that Greg was still alive.

Something else occurred to me all of a sudden, and I turned my head over my shoulder to look at Colette. “Why did Greg hang out with my father if he hated us all so much?” I asked. “I mean, they were in the car together when they crashed off that cliff, and Mom always said they were on their way to visit a mutual friend. Is that true?”

“Yes, it’s true. At least that’s what I was always told,” she said. “I think the two of them eventually realized they had some things in common—along with a few mutual friends—after Francis had been married to your mother for a few years. Gregory started being civil to him after that, and they became friends.”

“Right.” I wrinkled my forehead. “Do you remember anything else about Greg? Like any hobbies or interests he had apart from his job? Or places he liked to hang out? Maybe the names of some of his friends from the city?”

Colette pushed my head back around so she could put on the last Steri-Strip. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What about Greg’s old room in the house? Did Mom keep any of his things after he moved out?”

“Not to my knowledge. Why are you suddenly so curious about him, anyway?”

I hesitated. I couldn’t use my previous excuse—that I simply felt bad for not knowing much about him—because it was obvious by now that that wasn’t true. I was clearly angling for something else.

“The ten-year anniversary of the accident is coming up,” I finally said. “I was thinking of putting together a memorial thing for Mom, with stuff from Dad and Greg. But like I said before, I really didn’t know Greg that well, and I don’t have any of his things, so I’m a bit stuck on what to do.”

Colette came around to my front and started dabbing at my right temple with a wet wipe to remove the dried blood that had spilled over my face earlier. “That’s a very sweet idea. I’m sure your mother will appreciate it,” she said. “Now, let me think… I know Gregory moved most of his things out of the house when he went to medical school, and the rest went to Avalon City when he moved up there, but there might still be a few things in the—” Her eyes went wide. “Oh!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head slightly. “I just remembered something that might help you.”

“What is it?”

“Actually, no. Forget it. It’s far too morbid.”

“Just tell me, Colette,” I said, rolling my eyes upward.

She blew out a deep breath. “All right. Obviously, you already know there was no body after the accident,” she said in a low, tentative tone. “Greg was just… gone.”

“Yes.”

“The day before his funeral, I bumped into your mother leaving the house. She had two big boxes in her arms. I asked if she wanted any help carrying them, but she said no. I was worried, because the boxes looked very heavy, so I asked if she was sure, but she seemed quite protective of them and insisted that she was fine on her own.”

“What was in them?”

“I couldn’t see because they were taped shut, but I think Annalise could tell I was curious, so she told me. She said it was some of Gregory’s things. Old personal effects and so on. She thought it would be nice to put it in his coffin as a sort of symbolic gesture, seeing as there was nothing else to bury.”

“Right.”

“I thought it was a good idea to help the family get some closure. It was very hard for them without a body. At least with your father, there was…” Colette trailed off, cheeks flushing pink.

“There was something left of him to bury,” I said, finishing her sentence for her.

She tightened her lips and nodded. “Sorry, Nate. I shouldn’t have brought that up.”

“It’s fine. What were you saying?”

“Oh, yes. The boxes.” She straightened her shoulders. “From what I gathered, they contained things like old books and toys that Gregory had as a child or teenager, photos of him, and also some items from his house in Avalon City. So if you’re looking for ideas about his hobbies and interests, those boxes would probably be a good place to start.” She waved a hand. “But like I said, it’s a very morbid notion. You’d have to go into the family mausoleum and open his grave, and I doubt you’d want to do that. I couldn’t think of anything worse.”

“Yeah, it sounds pretty fucked up,” I said, smiling thinly.

I was going to do it as soon as I got out of here.

Colette finally finished patching up my head five minutes later. She ran me through a list of symptoms that I could experience later and made me promise to see a doctor if any of them actually happened. Then she let me go with a kiss on the cheek and a grumbled comment that went along the lines of, ‘If you keel over and die at any point in the next few days, I’ll never forgive you.’

I drove back to the main house and located the key to the family mausoleum. It was on the rack with the keys to all of Mom’s cars along with the mansion’s house and window keys. It was an old-fashioned looking thing, large and silver with an elaborate ornament at the end shaped in our family’s crest—a sloping arrow with a line crossing through the center.

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