Page 187 of Trust No One

I had no doubt. “We’ll come back next week.”

Her voice broke into a scream when I told her no. “Why can’t we stay tonight!”

“Because the police want us to live in Hale House.”

“Why?”

“They’re trying to figure out what happened to Mommy and Daddy.”

“They are dead.” The finality of her statement tore at my heart.

“I know, honey. I’m sorry.”

Something caught my eye on the nightstand. A framed picture—Maria and me back in high school. Smiling. Happy. Maybe Edith had found it and decided to place it there.

Under the glass, I saw another story. My hands had been scratched away. My chest slashed through.

Chapter Seventy

Raine

Saturday, October 24, 2026, 8:00 p.m.

Molly and I returned to Hale House after I promised—again and again—to take her back to the little house she’d shared with her parents. The only home she’d ever known.

Dinner was nothing more than peanut butter sandwiches, but it was nice to listen to Molly chat. Later, I coaxed her into the bath. As she splashed in the water, I sat cross-legged by the bathtub and read one of the books salvaged from her old bedroom—Clifford the Big Red Dog.

She cupped water in her hands, letting it drip over her face, then asked softly, “Do you think they followed us back here?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you think one will find me tonight?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s going to be tonight,” she whispered with certainty.

My chest tightened.

When she finally finished, I wrapped her in a towel, brushed her teeth and hair, and guided her into her pajamas. She climbed into the tall bed, where the blankets dwarfed her small frame.

“Can you stay here?” she asked.

“Sure. I have the monitor from your old bedroom. I can always see you.”

She glanced at the camera on the dresser. “Okay.”

I settled in the chair by her bed and reread her book. It wasn’t long before her eyes drifted closed. After a few more minutes, I rose quietly and eased out of her room, leaving the door cracked. Avoiding the step that creaked, I made my way down to the kitchen.

At the kitchen window, the cemetery loomed beyond the rise. Flashlight in hand, I slipped on a coat, tucked the monitor in my pocket, and moved out the back door. The back lawn was slick with cold drizzle. Something rustled in the woods; an animal—likely more deer—dashed through the underbrush.

The edges of the wrought iron fence appeared in the beam of my light, a section on the north side gaping open. The backhoe loomed silent, hulking, waiting.

Inside, the graves stretched before me. My beam skimmed over the headstones of grandparents and great-grandparents. Once they’d all been fixtures on the land. And now they were almost forgotten.

My light settled on my parents’ stones. My mother’s grave gaped open, discarded dirt tossed on my father’s site.

Seventeen years ago, I’d stood right here with Judson, his hand locked over mine, and watched Mom’s white coffin as it was lowered into the earth. Sadness had merged with relief.