Page 19 of Scarred By Sin

“Yes, I know.” Brook had a long conversation with Sheriff Gentry before he’d left the estate. “Sheriff Gentry mentioned that you asked to be the one to tell Gwenyth, but⁠—”

“That’s correct. And I would appreciate it if we could keep our voices down. I’d rather wait until Gwenyth is settled in a proper facility before giving her that kind of news. She’s fragile. Something like this could push her over the edge.”

Brook shared a surprised glance with Theo and Sylvie. It had been their understanding that Porter had already delivered the news, which was what she’d been attempting to relay. Brook parted her lips to respond, but she never got the chance. A voice came from the first landing of the staircase.

“I already know, Uncle Dale.”

Gwenyth Ellingham stood with one hand on the banister, the other hanging limp at her side. She wore the same long gray cardigan that Bit had described, and her dark hair fell straight and uncombed past her shoulders. Her face was pale, her frame impossibly thin beneath the shapeless knit, yet her eyes carried a clarity that contradicted everything Dale and Porter had claimed about her condition.

She was staring directly at her uncle with animosity.

“I’ve always known.”

8

Brooklyn Sloane

July 2026

Wednesday — 4:49 pm

The silence that followed Gwenyth’s words settled over the foyer like a change in pressure. Brook didn’t move from her position near the table. The remaining grapes sat untouched beside her workstation, and the blue-white glow of the monitor continued to pulse against the far wall as though nothing had changed.

But everything had changed.

Moving too quickly toward a woman who had just announced from a staircase that she’d always known her father was dead would accomplish nothing except driving her back behind the closed door of her suite. Dale recovered first, though poorly. He turned toward Gwenyth with his hands half-raised in a gesture that was either surrender or supplication, and the composure he’d walked in with had cracked wide enough to expose the man underneath it.

“Gwenyth, sweetheart, I was trying to spare you.” His voice had shifted into something softer, more practiced, the kind of tone people used when they were performing kindness rather than actually experiencing it. “While we suspected your father was among the…”

Dale couldn’t seem to finish his sentence.

He cleared his throat and continued trying to explain away his decision to exclude her.

“The sheriff just confirmed it, Gwenyth. I wanted to wait until the right time to⁠—”

“Leave.”

The lone word was stated with the kind of quiet authority that didn’t require volume. It traveled down the staircase and across the hardwood floor and landed in the dining room doorway, where Dale was still standing with his hands still half-raised.

This was not a woman lost in confusion.

“I’m not going to any facility, Uncle Dale.” Her grip tightened on the banister rail, and her knuckles whitened against the dark wood. “I’m not leaving my home.”

Dale opened his mouth to respond, but whatever he intended to say was cut short by Theo, who hastily stepped forward to redirect the situation.

“Mr. Ellingham, I have a few questions about your brother that I’d like to ask you.” Theo’s tone was even, professional, and carried just enough clout to make it clear that he wasn’t making a suggestion. “Could we step outside and have a word privately?”

Dale hesitated. His attention remained on the staircase, where Gwenyth was staring down at him with an expression that offered nothing. No anger, no grief, and certainly no negotiation. She was simply waiting for him to leave.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Gwenyth.” Dale adjusted the cuff of his sleeve once more and drew himself up to his full height. “But I believe the court will rule in my favor. It’s for the best.”

Gwenyth didn’t respond.

She held her uncle’s gaze without a single alteration in her posture, without so much as a blink, and the silence between them stretched until Dale released a long, resigned sigh and turned toward the front entrance. Theo followed him out, and the heavy oak door closed behind them with a sound that echoed through the foyer and up the staircase, reverberating off the stone walls before fading into the stillness of the house.

Brook waited until the resonance died before she moved. She positioned herself at the base of the staircase. Sylvie remained seated at the dining room table, close enough to observe but far enough to keep the space from feeling too crowded.

“Gwenyth, my name is Brooklyn Sloane.” Brook kept her voice conversational, as though they were meeting at a grocery store rather than in the foyer of a house that had just become the center of a federal investigation. “My colleague, Sylvie Deering, is sitting at the table. We’re with S&E Investigations, and we’ve been brought in to look into what was found in the greenhouse.”