Page 47 of The Couple's Secret
Riley nodded. “Yeah, they said. I was going to call you but then the funeral planning kind of overtook everything else. I don’t know what it was for. I took all her stuff when Jacks and I got married but there’s nothing that needs a skeleton key.”
“A jewelry box?” Gretchen said. “Trunk? Something larger like a cabinet of some kind?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you own anything like that?”
Riley shook her head.
“Jackson?” Gretchen went on.
“Nope.”
“What about something Tobias owned?” asked Josie.
Riley glanced between Jackson and Zane. “You guys would know better than me.”
“After the last time you asked, I took a look around but didn’t see anything.” Zane motioned toward the house. “You’re welcome to take a walk-through. I can even give you a tour if you’d like but I don’t think Dad owned anything like that. Jacks?”
“Nothing that I can remember,” he replied. “Maybe it was from something that passed through? Dad was always bringing stuff home to be sold for customers.”
“Not sure why Mom would take the key to something like that, but that’s the only thing that makes sense.” Riley looked up, patting Hollis’s hand. “Hol, would you still have a record of stuff the company sold for clients going back to before… before…”
He squeezed her shoulder, silencing her. “I’m sure we do. I can get Ellyn to look that up and get that to you.”
“That would be great,” said Gretchen. “The other question we have for you, Riley, is the name of the private investigator you hired to look into the case.”
“What for?” she hiccupped. “He didn’t find anything.”
“Due diligence,” Josie said.
“Bruce,” Jackson said. “Bruce Olsen.”
The name was vaguely familiar. Josie remembered seeing it in Fanning’s case file but couldn’t remember the context.
Zane walked past Jackson, bumping his brother’s shoulder. Stopping at the back door, he motioned Josie and Gretchen forward. “Come on, I’ll show you the inside of the house.”
As Zane led them through each room on the first floor, Josie was struck by a profound sense of loneliness. It filled the house, making even the brightest areas feel dark. A musty smell permeated the air. There was a stagnant energy to the place, as if time had been suspended. She supposed it had for the blended Lachlan/Stevens family.
“Have you made any changes in the past seven years?” she asked Zane as they entered the dining room. A thick layer of dust covered the table and the surface of a matching sideboard.
He jammed one hand into the pocket of his jeans and used the other to brush through his sandy hair. “No, not really. I wanted to keep everything the way it was in case they came home. It sounds stupid, I know, but even up until the day that the medical examiner showed up to tell me they were dead, a part of me genuinely believed that they were still going to walk through the front door and apologize for putting us through all those years of torture.”
“That doesn’t sound stupid at all,” Gretchen assured him with a gentle smile.
Zane’s cheeks flushed. “Thanks. I thought about changing things up so many times because realistically, I knew they weren’t coming back but it just felt… I don’t know.”
“Wrong,” Josie filled in. “Like you were giving up.”
His eyes snapped to hers, wide with surprise. “Yeah, that’s it.”
“Preserving everything made you feel like you were still close to your dad, didn’t it?” Gretchen said.
Zane chuckled but his eyes filled with tears. “Exactly. I guess this means I’m not crazy for keeping changes to the bare minimum.”
“Nope,” Josie said. “Not crazy at all. Just grieving.”
They followed him into the living room. So far, on the first floor, there were no doors, furniture, or other items that required a skeleton key. The infamous recliner was there, pointed toward the television. Its fabric was thin in some places and pilled in others. It didn’t match the rest of the furniture at all. It was no mystery as to why Cora had hated it. Zane touched the back of it reverently. Josie wondered if the sagging chair was the boys’ equivalent of the sweater that Riley clung to in her most anxious moments.
