Page 98 of A Secret to Die For

“Badly.” Why was he here? This conversation could have been an email. “Did you want something? I’m not planning on coming back to The Lookout any time soon, so you’ll have to do your own laundry.”

“I just wanted to see how you were.”

“Did the twins send you?”

They’d messaged me incessantly over the past few days, mostly with questions about Garrett. Not once had they enquired about my welfare.

“Nope.”

“Can you tell them if they text me one more time, I’m going to block their numbers?”

“I’ll pass on the message. Do you need anything from the house?”

“I could do with some more clothes,” I admitted, although I didn’t love the idea of Parker going through my underwear drawer. Yes, he’d been surprisingly nice to me lately, but there were certain boundaries I wasn’t about to cross.

“Write me a list, and I’ll bring them. Did you find whatever you were looking for the other day?”

I shook my head.

“Need any more help with the search?”

“No offence, but I don’t trust anyone with the surname ‘Baldwin.’”

“Can’t blame you for that. If I did, I’d be a hypocrite.”

Really? Had he forgotten his own last name?

“Oh, please. You’re one of them.”

“Am I?”

I ticked off the very valid points on my fingers. “You learned business from Grandpa. You work at Baldwin Estates with EJ, and you worked with Marianna too, before she went to prison. You hung out with Easton all the time. You go to parties with the twins.”

“Ever heard the phrase ‘keep your friends close, but your enemies closer’?”

“So are you saying they’re your enemies now?”

He paused for a moment, then kicked the door shut. “Yes.”

“And you expect me to believe it?”

“I can’t control what you believe, but I’m telling you I’m not the enemy. It’s up to you what you do with that information.” He sighed. “Living in that house is a mindfuck.”

“Then why don’t you leave? I bet you’ve already met your stupid inheritance goal.”

“Because I like to win. One down, two on the ropes, one to go.”

Was he talking about the inheritance? I did the math. The one down must be Easton—he couldn’t make money from prison. Were the two on the ropes the twins? If they got sued over the peanut allergy, then LKB’s reputation would be in the toilet. Who was the one to go?

“Don’t you mean two to go?”

He shook his head. “You’ll be fine.”

Now I knew he was talking crap.

“How? How will I be fine? Grandpa added a codicil to his will, did you know that? It gave me better terms, and somebody stole it. It might even have been you, seeing as you ‘like to win.’”

“I didn’t realise you knew about that.”

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