Page 6 of The Summer We Danced

She did? Eli felt his brow raise. He hadn’t been expecting that.

Vivien reacted, too. “I’m glad you do, Crista,” she said. “It’s an incredible place?—”

Crista held up her hand. “But it was given to us by our mother for the sole purpose of selling it for a profit to make up for what we went through with Dad,” she reminded them.

What they went through? A familiar disgust hit Eli in the chest at the thought of the decisions his father had made, the crimes he’d committed, and the shame he’d brought to the family name.

But somehow, his mother—wily and secretive as she was—had managed to squirrel away the beach cottage that Dad bought only a month before he was arrested, hiding the asset in a trust. For thirty years, she’d rented it out through an attorney, accumulating a considerable amount.

She’d used that money to hire Eli as the architect of this house, cleverly waiting until the statute of limitations on Dad’s crimes had passed. The law said that the house, or the profit from its sale, belonged to Roger’s three children, since their father had died while serving his sentence.

“Is she opposed to us keeping it?” Eli asked.

Crista shrugged. “Surprisingly, no. At first, she was a little taken aback because she knows that kind of financial windfall would be amazing for all of us.”

True. No one could argue that the cash from selling this place, even split three ways, would be a boon to all of their lives.

“She reminded me that under the weird loophole that her attorney found, we are legally permitted to sell and keep the profit, on or after the thirty-year anniversary of his death. Likewise, we are also permitted to keep the house. It’s our choice.”

Eli and Vivien shared a look, liking this news. They both fully expected Maggie to balk at the idea of keeping the house, but maybe she had recognized that it was their house to do with as they wanted.

“But then,” Crista continued, falling back as if the story was just too much, “the ground shook when I mentioned you’d been in touch with the Wylies. I made a game-time decision not to tell her they’d been here because…well, I could read the room. Or, in this case, the car. At the mention of the Wylies, she flipped out.”

“Eesh,” Vivien muttered. “Never fun.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Crista’s eyes shuttered. “She ordered me to tell you in no uncertain terms that we—none of us, all of us—are never, ever to speak to anyone from that family ever again. This is not negotiable. She said that our father would never have gone to prison if Artie hadn’t ratted on Dad to the police. Because of that tip—from a Cornell Law ethics professor, no less—they launched an investigation and the rest, as you know, is sad history.”

A sad and sickening history that had become etched in Eli’s life and heart.

“A history,” Crista continued, “that could have been avoided if Artie Wylie had kept his mouth shut and looked the other way, at least according to our mother.”

“Did she say how or why Artie would turn him in?” Vivien asked.

Crista shook her head. “She just said that he did, and that’s what ended their friendship and our summers in Destin with the Wylie family. She said that Artie Wylie was a ‘pompous goody two shoes’—that’s a quote—who somehow sniffed out that Dad was, um…doing some untoward things.”

Eli shifted in his seat and cast his gaze down. After thirty years, he still physically loathed the subject of Dad’s crimes. It hurt him body, soul, and spirit. And it had made him determined to be the polar opposite of his father, even though he had followed in his professional footsteps and become an architect.

“I know Artie taught ethics, so he should have known it was wrong to ruin all those lives,” Crista said, coming forward to look hard at them. “There’s such a thing as loyalty to your friends, you know. That’s ethical, too.”

“That’s why we’re defending Tessa,” Vivien said. “She’s become a friend. So has Kate.”

Crista grunted with visible disgust, and Eli fought the urge to respond. Not yet. He couldn’t tell her yet. But he would, eventually.

“That won’t go over well with Mama,” she said. “In fact…I’d rather she never found that out. The Wylie family is…our mortal enemy. If it weren’t for them, Dad would be alive today.”

“Quit saying that, Crista.” Eli’s words came out harsher than he meant them to, but he was sick of hearing a phrase that surely came straight from Maggie’s lips. “There’s got to be more to the story. If it’s true, there’s got to be a reason for Artie to make that decision.”

“Who cares what his rationale was?” Crista volleyed back. “I don’t need to know why he stabbed his best friend in the back. But I do know this—Mama made it clear that we are not to have anything to do with that family. Period, end of story. What difference does it make? They’ve been out of our lives for thirty years and they can stay that way.”

Eli winced and Vivien shot him a look that Crista definitely noticed.

“Why did you even get in touch with them?” she asked, fixing her gaze on Vivien.

“I wanted to talk to Kate,” Vivien said. “Finding out Mom still owned this property made me want to reconnect with two of my childhood best friends.”

“But you knew we don’t talk to them,” Crista said.

“I knew our parents had a falling out, and no one had any idea why until you came in here tonight. Not them, not us.” Vivien inched closer. “We had great memories of those seven summers. We honestly wanted to recreate them, and this past month? We have.”

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