Page 90 of A Secret to Die For

“The Baldwins, mainly. After the funeral, we had to fly to Oregon for Grandpa’s eightieth birthday celebration. Dad didn’t want to go, so Mom said fine, let’s not go then, but he said they were still family, and they bickered all the way to the airport. We made it through two days in Oregon before Dad had a fight with EJ and we flew home again.”

“He and EJ didn’t get along?”

“They hated each other.”

“Do you know why?”

“Probably because EJ’s an asshole. He acts all meek and nice, but he has a mean streak. He and Marianna were perfect for each other in that respect.”

“When you got home, what happened?”

“Well, obviously Mom was around more.” I remembered her putting on lipstick in front of the hall mirror before she went to job interviews, dressed in a suit and high-heeled pumps. “Dad said she’d find a new position in no time, that she had connections, but Mom was being picky. She didn’t want to make the same mistake again, she said.”

“What mistake?”

“I…I don’t know. Until now, I’d forgotten she even said that.”

But she had. The memory returned with perfect clarity. My parents had been talking in the kitchen over coffee, and Dad was worrying about the mortgage payment. And that’s when Mom made the comment. She didn’t want to rush into a new role and make the same mistake again. Better to wait until the right boss came along. Someone with…with integrity. I repeated what I’d recalled.

“And I’m not sure she was looking for another job on the Hill, not right then. I think…I think she mentioned working in a ski resort.”

Wouldn’t it be fun, kiddo? We could make snowmen every weekend in winter.

Blue sounded just a tiny bit triumphant. “Told you there was something hinky going on with Colvin. Did she accept a new job?”

“Not that I know of. There would have been some kind of celebration, wouldn’t there?”

“I’ll look into it.”

The words sent a chill through me. “Please, be careful.”

“I will, cross my heart. Let’s move on to the day of the crash. Can you talk me through what happened?”

I told her everything. About the babysitter, about me stowing away, about the headlights behind us. Being punched along the road, the screaming, the crunch of metal on wood. Mom being silenced by the monster. The cold that had seeped into my bones and the smell of death that hung heavy in the air in my crumpled prison.

Until I tasted salt, I didn’t realise that tears were running down my cheeks. I felt a tissue being pressed into my hand and opened my eyes to see a blurry Brooke.

“Thank you.”

“You’re doing so well.”

Was I? Really? I hadn’t remembered anything useful at all.

“Your mom said to burn something,” Blue prompted. “Burn them?”

“I don’t know who or what ‘them’ was.”

“Can you remember the rest of her words?”

“They made no sense. She told me that she loved me, and then it was just random words and numbers.”

“Tell me.”

I screwed my eyes shut again. “Third-floor window. Pipes. Fires. Dust. Eight sixteen. Burn them.”

She’d repeated the first part twice, the words punctuated by her rasping breath, by my sobs and the creaking and ticking of the car. By rain pounding on the roof. By the ominous rumbles of thunder.

“How many floors did your house in Virginia have?” Blue asked.

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