Page 3 of The Sweetest Obsession

“Tell me her name again,” I clip, watching below as Lieutenant Lucas Graves and Officer Henri Fontenot move through the assembled staff. Their voices sound distant, turned into hollow echoes by the far reaches of the ceiling as they take statements from the house personnel. “How long has she been working here?”

Lucia makes an irritated sound, but then seems to get over herself.

“Cora, I believe,” she says quietly. “Yes, her name was Cora, I... oh dear, what was her last name again? She made the most delightful coq au vin, and she always remembered to pick up this wonderful orange blossom hair mask for me. Oh, I’m soterriblewith names...”

Right.

You can remember her damn cooking and shopping trips, but not her name?

“Lafayette,” Montero fills in, smoothing a finger over his thin black mustache. He’s still watching me, unblinking, like we’re playing a game of chicken. I’m not interested. “And I believe we hired her ages ago? It was April, I recall. A delightful spring day. The hawks were out.”

I don’t give two shits about the hawks or all these diverting details.

I just file everything away into a deep, dark file in my head.

I’ve long since learned that taking the direct approach with an Arrendell is useless. The best thing to do is watch. Listen. Read between the lines.

Then wait for the right moment when something slips.

If I’m being honest, there’s not much waiting to be done today.

Whatever pushed this woman to the edge, there’s little doubt that it’s suicide, and after studying Cora Lafayette a little while longer, I sigh and jerk my head to Micah.

“Go with Henri and cut her down. We’ll get the county coroner in, confirm ID, notify the next of kin. Standard procedure.”

Micah frowns. “You want to wait until the autopsy? Knowing the cause of death might give them a little closure, at least.”

“I... yeah.” I clench my jaw, watching that slow depressing sway of the dead woman’s feet.

Closure.

That word stings like hell.

Too much death in this damn haunted house.

Earlier this year, one of those deaths was confirmed to be Lucas’ sister, too.

The first victim.

After years of having to accept that Celeste Graves was justmissing, that she’d run off and left him, Lucas finally got the closure he needed on his poor sister.

But Celeste wasn’t the only person who went missing that night.

Rumor had it that Ethan Sanderson—a man I grew up with, a man I loved like a brother, a man who was desperately in love with Celeste—had either run away with her, or else killed her himself and fled.

I knew better, though.

Ethan, he’d have never run off without telling me or leaving his sisters in the dark. I knew him well enough to know he’d never murder the woman he loved. So with Celeste dead and her case shut, that leaves the question.

Where is he?

What happened to Ethan?

Where’s my fucking closure?

What the hell happened to my best friend?

And what about his family; what about—

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