Page 44 of To the Grave

Rage.

Chapter 31

Daisy

Ipulled through the gates of my dad’s house and continued up the drive to the parking area at the front of the estate.

It felt weird to be back. The last time I’d been here, I’d been looking for Blake’s phone — the first one — and had ended up finding Ruth in bed with one of the (much older) Blades.

This time it was a Friday, and I knew Ruth would be in class at the community college, which was fine with me because I really wasn’t up for another surprise after the yearbook photos Wolf, Otis, and I had found the week before.

I’d texted Joan and asked her to let me know when my dad wasn’t home. I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever, but just when I’d figured out he wasn’t behind the missing girls, Jace had died. Then I’d spent three months in a dark hole and now I was questioning whether Charles Hammond was even my biological father.

The yearbook pictures of my mom with Mac flashed in my mind. When it was all said and done, they’d spanned two years, from my mom’s freshman year through her sophomore year when Mac would have graduated as a senior.

The pictures made it obvious she’d been serious with Mac. Like “first-love high-school-sweetheart let’s-spend-forever-together” serious.

So what happened?

Did it fizzle when she went away to college in the city? She didn’t meet my dad until her third year of college. Did she break things off with Mac then? Or did she end it even before that?

I had a million questions and next to no answers. The only thing I did know was that my mom had ended up back with Mac after she married my dad and had Blake. Whatever else had happened had gone with her to the grave.

The only other person who could fill in the blanks was Mac.

I let myself into the house and called out. “It’s me!”

Joan appeared a few seconds later wiping her hands on the apron tied around her waist. “There you are!”

Her brown hair seemed more threaded with silver than it had been the last time I saw her, but maybe that was my imagination.

She gave me a hug and I pulled back with a laugh. “Let me guess,” I said, chocolate?”

It was a game we’d played when I was little.

Her brown eyes sparkled. “You got that fast.”

“I’m going to say… brownies?”

She laughed. “I’m an easy mark after all these years. I know you probably can’t stay, but I’ll pack some for you to take home.”

Home. Was the house at the top of the falls — with its wallpaper and gilt-framed portraits of serious ancestors and the occasional still-creaky floorboard — home now?

Yes. I felt it in my bones. But it wasn’t just the house. It was them. The Beasts. In spite of what they’d put me through, they felt like home.

“That’s sweet, thanks. I’ll try to stay for a visit when I’m done. I just want to be out of here before my dad comes home.”

Sympathy crossed her face. “Daisy… your dad loves you. I know he’s not great at showing it, but I promise it’s true.”

Was it? What if I was Mac’s daughter? Would he love me then? Did he already know? Was that why there had always been an uncrossable gulf between us?

“I know,” I said, because that was easier than asking all those questions of poor Joan, who had no idea what I’d discovered since moving out nine months earlier. “Thanks for letting me know when he would be out of the house though. It makes things easier.”

“Of course, honey.” I was halfway to the grand staircase when her voice stopped me. “It’s weird about Calvin, isn’t it?”

My heart thudded in my chest and I had a flash of memory: me, sprawled out on the sofa in the house at the top of the falls while getting fucked by the Beasts, not even caring that they were covered in Calvin’s blood.

“It is,” I said, turning around to face her. “Are the police still looking? I haven’t read anything about it lately.”

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