Page 36 of Home Is Where the Bodies Are

I shake my head. “I don’t understand who would do this.”

“What if someone knows?” Nicole asks, still staring off. She snaps out of it, the gravity of the situation pulling her back to us. She looks to me and then Michael. “About Emma and what Mom and Dad did.”

“Why would they ransack the house? Wouldn’t they just go to the police?” I furrow my brow.

Michael nods in agreement.

“Maybe they were looking for evidence, or maybe... this was a warning.”

My eyes dart to the tape placed on top of the VCR. If that was the case, the evidence was right there, and they missed it. Then again, we would have too if we hadn’t randomly picked that particular tape and watched it.

“But how would anyone know?” Michael squints.

“What if Mom had something set up? A fail-safe for when she passed, like someone would be alerted as to what she and Dad did. The pages in her journal from that time are missing. Maybe she tore them out and sent them to someone. Told them to wait to open it until after she died,” Nicole says. The words come slowly like she’s trying to piece together a theory as she speaks.

“You really think Mom is capable of that? A grand fail-safe plan in the event of her death?” Michael asks.

“She hired a lawyer and put together a will without me even knowing,” I say, clinging to Nicole’s theory.

“And she hid the money you wired to her, Michael. Beth had no idea she had another checking account,” Nicole adds.

Michael rubs his forehead. “But who would she tell?”

“Susan,” Nicole offers.

“She’s too feeble to do something like this,” he says, gesturing to the ransacked room.

“Lucas?” Nicole looks to me.

“He would never do this,” I say.

Michael raises a brow. “Even if he found out Mom and Dad were involved in his sister’s disappearance?”

I close my eyes for a second. I can’t say he wouldn’t. Because I don’t know what he would do if he knew the truth. They say the truth will set you free, but they don’t tell you it can set you free in the same way death does.

“Okay, who else is there?” Nicole asks.

Mom’s final words echo in my head.Your father. He didn’t disappear. Don’t trust...

I swallow hard, pushing them down again. Maybe she wasn’t trying to tell me what happened. Maybe she was trying to warn me because she had already told someone or had plans to, and she knew they’d come looking for answers.

“Maybe someone from the Grove?”

“Like who?” Michael tilts his head.

“I don’t know. But whoever it is, do you think they’ll come back?” I ask.

“If they didn’t find what they were looking for, I’m sure they will,” he says.

“What do we do then?” The color from Nicole’s face has drained, and I’m not sure if it’s from the methadone or fear.

“I’ve got Dad’s pistol,” Michael says with a serious look. “It was in one of the boxes Mom left to me. Luckily, I had already stowed it away for safekeeping, so whoever broke in didn’t find it. And if they come back, well, they’ll wish they hadn’t.”

“You’re not actually going to shoot someone, Michael,” I scoff.

“I would if I had to.”

I don’t question him again, because I believe him. I hope it doesn’t come to that. I’d like to say this was just a random burglary. But that doesn’t happen in a town this size. Everything that happens here happens for a reason.

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