The Sister-in-Law: An absolutely gripping summer thriller for 2021 by Pamela Crane (best romance novels of all time .TXT) 📗

I hope this can get us answers finally, I exclaimed.

The evidence they had found at Michelle Hudson’s house would tell everything soon.

Oh good!

Oh crap.

Evidence? What evidence? It was only a matter of time before the lies came undone. The truth had a way of doing that. If you just kept pulling on the end of the string, eventually the whole knotted ball unraveled. I could sense the time for goodbyes approaching, which brought me here. Home.

Sliding the key into the keyhole, I unlocked the back door and headed inside, inhaling the musty scent of unlived-in space. I paused at the antique nineteenth-century Victorian mirror, a gorgeous piece in an elegant oak frame with applique carved vines and flowers, which I had left hanging in the hallway as it was too heavy to move. The renters arriving next week needed mirrors too, didn’t they?

In the gray I looked younger than my thirty-eight years. I didn’t mind the threads of white hair beginning to pop up amid the red. Or even my thin dash of chaste lips. I’d never considered myself a great beauty, but I had always been happy with who I was. You can forgive a homely face when you have a good heart. But I had lost that, the thing that truly mattered. I could no longer look into my own eyes, they were two black holes that sucked in all light, all hope.

It was strange how death took only a moment, but it changed everything forever.

I crept into the living room, careful not to disturb the dust. I didn’t want to wake the ghosts that lived here. I was surprised to see the sofa Ben had died on still here. I had insisted that the cleaning company dispose of it; who would want to keep such a deathbed? But for whatever reason, they had cleaned it and left it, along with it the harsh recall of seeing Ben’s dead body sprawled out across it. I sat in the place Ben had taken his last breath, tracing the bronze nailhead accents, my vision drifting back in time. A pool of blood flowered at my feet, rolling across the wood, seeping into the cracks between the boards. A swell of nausea churned in my stomach, and I jumped up and ran to the powder room.

Splashing water on my face helped abate the stomach sickness, but not the heart sickness. I stepped into the hallway, remembering all of the details Ben and I had put into our Hendricks Way home. I lived through art, decorating each room with passion and pain. The burgundy living room painted after I lost my baby so that my house bled along with my heart. Bone white furniture I’d bought when I vowed to start fresh and move forward, pure like snow. The memories were doomed to tarnish, but I would hold on to them as long as I could.

I headed upstairs for one last look. The bedroom was as I’d left it, our California king four-poster bedframe against the far wall. Curling up on the naked mattress, I inhaled the lingering scent of Ben’s cells. It wasn’t the cool patch of Egyptian cotton we had slept on, but he was still here. I could feel him.

Pulling my purse closer, I rummaged inside for the note Ben had left me, his last words. I hadn’t told Lane that I’d kept it. I was supposed to have destroyed it, the only tangible evidence of his suicide that existed. But I couldn’t part with it. It was all that was left of my husband, his last message to me. For some reason probably rooted in self-loathing, I wanted the reminder of what I had caused him to do. The guilt felt deserved, and it was mine to keep.

I skimmed the letter, then closed my eyes, allowing the exhaustion to suck me in. And as the edges dulled to black, I thought of that terrible night, the night Ben died and I was forced to live. The details of what I had seen, the truth I had discovered, clawed its way out … loosening the memory free, then rising …

***

The retirement neighborhood that Mom lived in was the quintessential place to grow old. Modest one-story brick homes, yard maintenance provided. With a community pool – No Kids Allowed! – a fitness center, and even a cute general store, it was more a village than a neighborhood.

Although Grandma loved visits with the kids, her neighbors, not so much. Any disruption to the quiet unsettled their fragile nerves. I glared at Elise and Jackson, both wandering off the front stoop of my mother’s house, and shot a warning.

‘No fighting, you two. Grandma is looking forward to your sleepover, so you best behave. Do you promise you’ll be respectful and listen to her?’ Threats didn’t mean much when they came from Grandma, but they knew I always meant business.

‘We promise,’ Elise moaned. ‘You’ve said this, like, a hundred times already.’

I shifted my eyes to Jackson. ‘And you?’

‘Fine,’ he said, drawing the ‘i’ out with annoyance.

Mom’s footsteps shuffled toward the door after the first knock, her cheery voice calling, ‘Coming!’

When she answered wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, I nearly choked on my shock. Mom never wore casual comfort; Mom was glitz and glamour. As a real estate agent she was driven by appearances – look like success and you’ll attract success, she had always told me.

‘Get in here and give your grandma a hug!’ she exclaimed, dragging the kids in and engulfing them in her arms.

‘I appreciate this, Mom. I’ll be back in the morning after breakfast to pick them up.’ I planted a quick kiss on Elise’s and Jackson’s heads, then turned to the door.

‘You won’t stay for a bit? I just put the kettle on for tea.’

‘I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta run. I’ll check in later, though.’

She grabbed my arm with a