Her Sister's Secrets

by V. J. Chambers

  I debated for a minute, and then decided I was being too paranoid. I scampered back up into the room and sat down in the chair where I’d been sitting before. I took a sip of my drink.

  Seconds later, Drew and the lawyer came into the study.

  I stood up.

  Drew smiled at me. “Oh, you’re still here. Good.” He gestured to the lawyer. “This is Cameron Slater, our family lawyer.” He turned to the lawyer. “Mr. Slater, this is Emilia Farrow.”

  Slater crossed the room to me and offered me his hand. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Farrow.”

  “Likewise,” I said.

  Drew got Slater a drink and then we all sat back down. Drew behind the desk, me in my chair, and Slater in a chair opposite me.

  I waited, my mind racing. Maybe I’d just made a big mistake. Maybe Slater was in on it, and they were going to kill me together. God knows what they’d do to me beforehand, and I probably shouldn’t be in this house anymore—

  “Well, this is all a delicate matter,” said Slater. “And I have to admit that I’m not even sure how to begin going into it without creating a taint on your father’s memory, Drew.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” said Drew, downing the rest of his drink. “As far as I’m concerned the memory of my father is already thoroughly tainted. He was an asshole.”

  “He was a man with faults,” Slater admitted, “but he was my client, and all clients deserve the right to be defended to the best of my ability. I always did what I could for your father.”

  “Even though you knew he was a criminal?” I burst out with. I couldn’t help myself. “Did you know what he did to all those women?”

  Slater turned to me. “All those…?” He shook his head. “Listen, I’m only aware of things that Roman needed legal advice for. So, no, I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “He was a rapist,” I said darkly.

  Slater made a tent with his fingers and tapped them against his chin. “Well, that depends on your point of view, I suppose—”

  “Are you serious?” I said.

  “In the case of Taylor Bolton, she decided that she would withdraw that accusation.”

  “Wait, he raped Taylor too?” I said. “His own daughter?”

  Drew made a noise in the back of his throat and got up from the desk. He stumbled back over to the drink cart. This time, he didn’t bother to add ice. He just filled his glass with whiskey.

  “I don’t think that Roman was quite aware of his genetic ties to Taylor when the incident occurred,” said Slater quietly. “Otherwise, I’m sure that it wouldn’t have happened at all.”

  Drew downed the entire glass of whiskey. “This just gets worse and worse.”

  “Well, yes,” said Slater. “It’s a bit sordid, I’m afraid, and there’s more.”

  “More?” said Drew.

  “Maybe you’d like the good news?” said Slater, raising his eyebrows. “You asked me about Violet Farrow.” He turned to me. “Your sister, yes, Ms. Farrow?”

  I nodded.

  Slater turned back to Drew. “Well, near as I know, there were never any paternity claims leveled against your father for Violet Farrow. And as you yourself know, Drew, a man of Roman’s wealth dealt with a fair amount of accusations, most of which were groundless. I was made aware of each and every one, and there was never a hint of anything from that direction.”

  Drew shrugged. “Well, that’s something, I guess.” He seized the neck of the whiskey bottle.

  “Maybe you’ve had enough?” I said.

  “Not nearly,” said Drew, pouring himself more. He turned to Slater. “What’s the bad news?”

  “Right.” Slater nodded. “Well, the incident with Ms. Bolton was very convoluted. Her mother had drowned, and Taylor thought to accuse your father. She thought he had killed her mother to cover up the fact that there was so much, um…” Slater cleared his throat. “I’m not even sure how to explain it all. Maybe if I go back to the very beginning. It’s a bit of a complex family saga, I’m afraid.”

  “Just tell me everything,” said Drew.

  Slater nodded. “So, Molly Bolton, Taylor’s mother, had grown up in the Wainwright household, because her mother had worked for your grandfather, Seamus Wainwright. And there was some sort of incident between Molly’s mother and Seamus, and Molly was the result.”

  “Wait a second,” said Drew. “You’re saying that Molly Bolton was my father’s half sister?”

  “Indeed, yes, I am,” said Slater. “Unfortunately.”

  “So, wait, that means that my father raped his sister and impregnated her, so that when he raped Taylor, she was both his daughter and his niece and—” He downed his whiskey.

  Slater cleared his throat. “Sordid, as I said.”

  “And you convinced that poor woman to change her mind about being violated?” I said.

  “Nothing was going to be solved by airing the family’s dirty laundry,” said Slater. “Roman was willing to be quite generous with Taylor. He paid her a very large sum of money, and she’ll never want for anything her whole life. The only caveat was that she wouldn’t speak of the situation afterward.”

  Drew shook his head.

  “Really, that’s all there is to this,” said Slater.

  Drew was still shaking his head. “Oh, sure, that’s all.”

  “I know it can’t be easy to hear these sorts of things,” said Slater, “but if it’s any consolation, I believe this incident was a bit of a wake-up call for Roman. He had been somewhat careless with his… affections, if you will, and I think from that point onward, he was more self-controlled.”

  “Did my mother know?” said Drew. “Is this why my mother left?”

  “I think there were a lot of very complicated reasons for the breakup of your parents’ marriage, and I couldn’t possibly speak to that.”

  Drew laughed bitterly. “No, of course not.”

  And then it was quiet.

  I sipped at my vodka cranberry. That was the most disgusting thing I thought I’d ever heard. I could hardly believe it. It was too horrible to even consider. I tried to imagine how scarring this must have been for Taylor Bolton, discovering she was the product of incest and then being violated by her own father. How could she bear the knowledge of such a thing? No amount of money in the whole world would make up for it.

  “Well, that’s all I have,” said Slater. “So, unless there’s anything else you need from me, I’ll be going.” He stood up. Guy probably was disgusted too. He didn’t want to stay in this room and think about all of it anymore. Or maybe he didn’t want to watch Drew drink himself into a stupor.

  “Sure, fine,” said Drew.

  “No need to see me out,” said Slater, striding across the room to the door.

  Drew collapsed in the chair that Slater had been sitting in.

  “Have a pleasant evening,” said Slater, pausing in the doorway.

  “You too,” I said.

  Drew didn’t say anything. He gazed dully at his empty glass.

  Slater slipped out through the door.

  I stood up. “Well, thank you for including me in this, but—”

  “You’re not leaving?” Drew looked up at me pleadingly.

  “Drew, you’re very drunk, and before—earlier—you were saying all those things about pushing me into the wall and—”

  “You don’t think that I would…?” Then his shoulders slumped. “Why wouldn’t you? It must be in my blood. First my grandfather, then my father? No wonder you’d think that of me.”

  I didn’t want to stay here with his man. I wasn’t sure if he really did have any violent intentions toward me or not. Even if he didn’t, he was incredibly drunk and trying to deal with a horrible truth about his family. He wasn’t going to be good company.

  I remembered thinking about how Drew was my friend, and I wanted to be a good friend to him. But I also couldn’t trust him.

  “I want to tell you something,” said Drew.

 
; “Look, maybe you should lie down,” I said. “We can talk in the morning. We could go out somewhere together for breakfast. In public.”

  Drew scooted down in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve done a really horrible thing, Emilia, and I need to tell someone about it. I can’t stand keeping it inside anymore.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t done anything that horrible,” I said. “Now, did you really dismiss everyone who works here tonight? There’s no one to help you out?”

  “It was horrible. Someone is dead.”

  I froze in place. Was he going to confess Violet’s murder to me? Had he done it? I reached into my pocket and found my cell phone. I glanced sidelong on it to pull up a recording app. Oliver said I needed evidence. Maybe this was it.

  Of course, if Drew confessed to me, then he’d probably try to kill me afterward, but I’d call Oliver the minute I had the confession, and—

  “I didn’t mean it,” said Drew. “I never wanted this.”

  “Just tell me what happened,” I said in a soft voice.

  “I was angry,” said Drew. “I was horrified and confused, and I was hardly in my right mind.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Why were you angry?”

  “Because of what you told me,” he said.

  “What I told you?” But I hadn’t talked to him until after—

  “I came up here to confront him about letting me sleep with Violet, because I thought she was my sister,” said Drew. “And I yelled a lot of things at him, and maybe he even looked confused. But some of it was true. He did attack your mother. He was an utter bastard, and the world is better off without him.

  My eyes widened. “You killed Roman?”

  “No!” Drew dragged his hands over his face. “I just yelled. And he backed up.” Drew pointed to the door to the deck, which was behind the desk. “He kept backing up and backing up, and I kept coming closer and yelling louder, and then…” He vaulted up out of the chair. “Fuck.”

  Oh, geez.

  Drew walked over to the door to the deck. He pressed his palm against the glass. “He lost his balance.”

  I didn’t know what the hell to say. I reached back into my pocket and turned off the recording on my cell phone. This wasn’t the confession I was interested in.

  Drew turned back around to look at me. “He was my father, you know? Whatever else he was, he was my father, and I’ll never have another one.”

  I nodded. My voice was quiet. “My own dad is no prize.”

  Drew rubbed his forehead. Then he stalked back across the room to the drink cart.

  “Drew—”

  “No.” He put his finger in my face. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  I clasped my hands together. I still wanted to leave, but I felt as though I couldn’t. I felt bad for Drew, but I also felt trapped in this horrible place, this horrible situation. Everything about this house and this family seemed cursed.

  Drew tipped the whiskey bottle back into his mouth. He took a big swallow, and then set it down. He staggered back into the chair. His eyes closed.

  Oh, hell, was he passing out again?

  Yep, sure enough, moments later, it was obvious he was asleep.

  I left him there to go looking through the house for someone, anyone. I knew that Drew said he’d given the servants the night off, but I also knew that people like Liza lived here, had rooms below in the house. And, in the end, that was who I found. Liza.

  She promised me that she’d look in on Drew, make sure he was all right.

  I went back upstairs to try to move his body into a more upright position. I didn’t want him to choke on vomit or something in his sleep.

  Then I left.

  I went back to my house and I found the cell phone that the Host have given me.

  I opened up a message. I typed, Are you Taylor Bolton? I sent it to the Host’s number.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  I didn’t know why I had been so focused on the idea of the Host being a man. Maybe some part of me wanted to be wooed with clothes and flowers and jewelry by a mysterious male figure. But the truth was that it made more sense for the Host to be a woman. All the attention to detail? The clothes, the jewelry, the makeup, the beauty products? A woman would have known all the right things to purchase. I should have seen it before.

  For a while, I sat out on my porch and stared at the phone, expecting a response to come back at any moment.

  But when none did, I simply stared out at the dark waves in the distance, and I thought about those wild games of hide and seek on the multi-level decks at the Wainwright house. I remembered once, Violet had been found right away, which often happened, because she was younger than us, and she didn’t always pick the best hiding spots. She was stuck on the prison of the opposite team, and she was yelling at the top of her lungs for someone to come and jailbreak her.

  I remembered that I was annoyed, because I was going to have to save her. And then Violet would probably stick to me like glue after that, and want to hide wherever I was hiding, which would make it all harder in general. I didn’t want to free her.

  But she was my sister, and I couldn’t leave her in the enemy’s prison, now could I?

  So, I waited for my moment, and I ran to the base and yelled, “Jailbreak!”

  And then Violet and I both ran as quickly as we could down the decks, all the way to the sand below, and we hid behind some canoes that were stacked up against the wall. It took a long time for anyone to find us down there. We sat in the shadows of the canoes, and Violet held my hand.

  It made me think of the two of us hiding together in the closet, but this was different. This was just fun, just play. We had been together and it had been me and Violet against the enemy. We were a team.

  But somewhere along the way, we’d ended up on opposite sides. When she really needed me, I hadn’t been there for her. I didn’t know if I could ever forgive myself for that.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  When I woke up, there was a text on the phone from the Host.

  It was just one word.

  Yes.

  I tried calling the number. I wanted to speak to Taylor Bolton now that I knew it was her. But no one picked up.

  So, I texted back. Why did you want me here?

  Because I didn’t quite understand. I could see that Taylor’s fingerprints were all over this, but the ins and outs were still a little fuzzy for me.

  Since I hadn’t gotten an answer to my phone call, and the first text had come in quite some time ago, I didn’t much expect a response too quickly.

  But it came, moments later.

  I couldn’t talk about what happened with Roman Wainwright. But you could. Not that it matters so much now.

  Ah, okay, I thought I understood now. Taylor had a gag order as a result of her settlement with Roman Wainwright. I could understand why she took the money. She’d had nothing. Her mother was dead, possibly murdered by Roman. I wondered if I’d ever know the truth of that matter. And Taylor probably hadn’t had a lot of skills or education or anything like that. However much money Roman had given her, it must have been quite a tidy sum. I saw what she’d lavished on me in this house and the clothes and all of that, so she was quite capable of taking care of herself.

  I could see why the thought of that money would have been seductive. Sure, she must have thought that she could take the money and run. That she’d be able to remake herself and move on, and leave it all behind.

  But I bet it simply hadn’t worked. I bet she wished like hell that she’d taken Roman down.

  But she couldn’t break the gag order. She must have tried other things. She would have found other women that Roman had attacked and contacted them, tried to get them to go public. That was likely what happened with Charlotte Porter. Maybe there were others that Taylor had contacted as well.

  And then, when my sister had drowned so mysteriously, just like Taylor’s mother, Taylor must have put it all together. It didn’t mat
ter if Violet was Roman’s daughter or not. She might as well have been. Violet could have been Taylor.

  So, Taylor must have thought that if she got me here, got me digging, I would expose Roman for what he’d done.

  But she hadn’t counted on Roman dying.

  I texted her again. Did Roman kill Violet?

  Maybe, she texted back. Probably.

  But I wasn’t so sure. If Violet wasn’t Roman’s daughter, then what was his motive? Maybe he might have done it if he thought that Violet remembered Roman’s attacking our mother. But I couldn’t know if she did.

  No, there was more to Violet’s death than this particular drama, as twisted and awful as it was. And if I wanted to get to the bottom of that, I was going to need to be right in the thick of things, here in this house.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  I sent one more text back to Taylor. Thanks for letting me crash here.

  She texted back, Feel free to stay.

  I wished there was something else I could do for her, but I wasn’t sure what that might be. I composed a couple of other texts, offering to be there for her or to talk or to… I didn’t know what. I deleted them all.

  And then I called up to the Wainwright house, to a landline that was in the kitchens. Liza answered. I verified that Drew hadn’t died in the night. She said he was fine except for an awful hangover.

  I couldn’t even imagine.

  I called Phin to fill him in on the details, but he wasn’t awake, so I left him a message saying to call when he could.

  Then I made myself a simple breakfast. Toast, peanut butter, and fruit. I was starting some coffee to brew when my phone rang.

  It wasn’t the phone that the Host had left me, but rather my own phone. I didn’t recognize the number, but I picked up anyway.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, I’m trying to reach, uh, Emilia Farrow?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Hope it’s not too early. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “No, I’m up.”

  “This is Jess Gilbert, from Sarasota Sun Catering.”

  “Oh!” I said. “Oh, right. I’m so glad you called back.”