“Ava should go back to California. She’s got enough to worry about at home, she doesn’t need to be here,” Ethel says as I turn away and face the black garment bag that hangs from the top edge of the closet door.
“You know she won’t, not until she’s got everything packed up at least. She’s stubborn. Wonder where she got that from.”
“Not me, if that’s what you’re implying, my girl.”
“No,” I deadpan. “I would never, Auntie.”
My aunt glances up and I flash her a bright, fleeting smile. I take a step closer to the closet, but I can feel her scrutiny on me, Ethel’s watchful gaze sharp enough to cut through any armor I try to put between us. I should have known better than to try to fool the woman who built an empire out of flour and sugar—details are kind of Ethel’s forte. It’s better to grab the dress and get out of here so I can figure out what the hell I should do.
The only problem is, I’m just a little bit too late.
“What’s wrong?” Ethel asks, no hesitation in her tone. “Are you unsure about Sloane’s wedding?”
My eyes don’t stray from the garment bag, even though I feel my aunt’s gaze drilling into my head. I have the most powerful urge to rescue the dress from its black cocoon, as though Sloane’s happiness will suffocate in there if I don’t let it out.
I shake my head as I walk toward the bag and grab the hanger. “No, Auntie. Absolutely not.”
I’m unzipping the first few inches of the garment bag when Ethel says, “Well, that’s a bit of a shame, dear, because it would make solving the Kane problem a little easier if she were to suddenly dislike those boys.”
When I spin to face her, my aunt is pulling a thread through her canvas, a devious grin on her lips. “How do you know about the Kanes?” My eyes narrow. “You set me up to overhear Mom and Damian.”
“Maybe.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
My aunt shrugs. “Better for you to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Your sister thinks I’m senile. Who knows what I’m making up?”
Fair point. I know as well as anyone not to trust half the shit Ethel Montague comes out with. It’s part of her power, to always keep you guessing. “How do you even know about all that?”
“Meadowlark,” she says with a cluck of her tongue as she pins me with a flat glare above the acetate rims of her glasses, “this is still my house. And this family’s business is still my concern, whether your parents think it should be or not.”
My throat tightens as I take a few steps closer to my aunt, the partially opened garment bag draped across my raised arms like an offering. I open my mouth to say something, but words die on my tongue when my aunt smiles and turns her attention back to the embroidery hoop clutched in her hand.
“Have a seat, my girl.”
I do as she commands and sit across from her as she pushes the needle through the canvas to create stitches of crimson. “I don’t think the Kanes are involved in whatever is going on,” I say. She keeps her eyes down on her work but nods. “Definitely not Fionn. Rowan would never do anything to inadvertently hurt me by harming people I know, no matter how thin those connections might be.”
“And Lachlan?”
Would he? Is this retaliation on behalf of his boss like my parents and Tremblay were saying downstairs? Could Lachlan be the type to take revenge on us for dropping the contract? For him being sucked deeper into a life he never asked for? He’s certainly sharp around the edges with a giant and jagged chip on his shoulder. But it just doesn’t sit right. “I don’t think he would take a risk that would jeopardize his brothers’ health or happiness. No.”
“I don’t either. Personally, I think Bob Foster is finally making his move, that slimy little shit. Leave it to him to kick a dying dog when it’s down. But Tremblay has a different opinion, and your mother is leaning in his direction.” Ethel looks up at me as she pulls the thread taut. “Damian doesn’t seem wedded to the idea that Lachlan is involved in these murders, no pun intended,” she says as she momentarily drops her gaze to the dress spread across my lap. “But it’s one of the reasons I love her as much as if she had been born a Montague. She’s just as bossy and conniving as me.”
A deep sigh fills my lungs. “Maybe there’s some way to prove it, like a solid alibi that would take Lachlan out of consideration.”
I know as much as Ethel does that there’s no such thing as a solid alibi when people like Lachlan are involved. “He is a professional. People like him with access to the right resources can make up any excuse, fabricate any believable story and evidence.”
“What if I just talk to Mom and Dad, convince them he wouldn’t do it …”
“It’s going to take more than a conversation to sell that story, Lark.”
“But I can’t just let this happen to Sloane. I can’t. Not after everything that happened when we were at Ashborne—”
My aunt’s hand darts out and catches mine, squeezing with surprising strength. “I know where you’re going with this, Lark. But you cannot blame yourself for the things that happened at that school. None of it was your fault, you hear me?”
Though I nod, the tears still blur my vision with a watery film. Although I know that what Mr. Verdon did was not my fault, I can never seem to shake the guilt I still feel. It’s a sense of shame that drapes across me like a veil. I’ve questioned myself thousands of times, blamed myself for being strung up in the fear he injected into my thoughts with his whispered threats and promises. And just as I’ve questioned myself over and over, I’ve reassured myself too. It wasn’t my fault.
But maybe if I’d acted sooner …
“You can’t second-guess the decisions you made to survive.” Ethel lets go of my hand and coughs, a rumble of discomfort that creases her face with pain. When I reach out to lay a comforting hand on her arm, she waves me off.
“We could get nurses here for you. Get a room set up just the way you want it. You don’t have to go to a care home,” I say as her cough continues and her face pinks with strain. My heart squeezes as Ethel raises a tissue to her mouth and wipes away a smear of bloody saliva from her lips. “I can arrange it all for you. I don’t mind.”
“I mind,” she wheezes out. It takes her a moment, but she regains her composure, though her cloudy eyes are still glassed with a thin film of tears from the mere effort to breathe. “I won’t have you all scurrying around this house like deranged little hamsters while I slowly wither away into the afterlife.”
“Well that’s … bleak. And kind of weird.”
“Maybe it’s time you learn that power can be found in unexpected decisions.” Ethel picks up the hoop with one hand, her needle with the other, and levels me with a serious look. “I’m the one who decided to go to Shoreview. No one will watch me deteriorate in my own home. It won’t stop it from happening, of course. But it’s even worse to fall apart in full view in the symbolic heart of the empire I built. Besides, I’ll be closer to you. And you never know,” she says with a wink before her eyes finally drop to her work, “I might need to hang on to a little power for a final scheme or two.”
My head tilts, but Ethel doesn’t look up, not even when we descend into an extended moment of silence. “Scheme …?”
“Indeed. You know,” Ethel says as she pierces the taut canvas to pull a red vein of thread through the fabric, “something I love about your mother and Damian is that they are so steadfast in their beliefs. Family first. Promises made must be kept. Vows, honored.”
My gaze drifts out the window toward the sea as I nod. I expect my aunt will say something about how it’s our shared duty in this family to make hard decisions to look out for one another. There’sa lesson in this, she’ll say. Sometimes, we all need to sacrifice a little happiness to protect the ones we love and keep our promises to look after one another. And nothing is more important than that. But the hollow pit in my stomach will only grow deeper. More desolate. More insatiable.
“Back at the school, when Sloane protected you, did you promise to look after her in return?”
I blink at Ethel, only now realizing my cheeks are damp. “Yes.”
“Yes,” my aunt echoes. “You did. And you can keep that promise by making another. The kind of promise that your parents would not interfere with. At least, not if they were … convinced.”
“I don’t understand …”
Ethel lets my confusion linger in the air as she pulls her thread through the fabric. Pierce and pull. Pierce and pull. Maybe she’s waiting for me to find a solution myself, or to divine her thoughts from her simple motion, but I don’t. “Do you know what my favorite thing is about your mother and stepdad?”
“Their ability to obliterate their competition and take out their opponents while maintaining the image of a perfect, happy family?”
“That too,” Ethel says. “Mostly, though, it’s their loyalty. Their deep love of each other. Their deep love of you girls.” Ethel pulls a final crimson stitch through the canvas before she knots the thread and clips it with scissors. “Their unwillingness to break promises to the ones they love.”
She’s right, of course. I know that for all the darkness in their lives, my mom and stepfather love us deeply. Just like my mother loved my dad, Sam. And long before she met my dad, she loved Damian. Her childhood sweetheart. A young love that burned bright but couldn’t survive the demands of time. Or so they must have thought, until my dad passed away and those embers slowly came back to life.
“So you think I can talk them out of killing Lachlan because, what … my parents love their family …? That doesn’t make any sense, Auntie.”
Ethel turns to me, and I meet her eyes, the color of fog, a mist over the sharp mind that grinds away beneath the gray film. “Do you remember going to Damian’s father’s funeral when you were little?” I shake my head. “You were about five. It was the first time your mom and stepfather saw each other after so many years apart. I’m sure I’m not the only one who could feel that electric charge between them. But your mother had you girls. She had Sam. Life had moved on. And no matter how much love Damian and Nina still had for each other, they would never break your mother’s vows or wound your dad. Had we not lost Sam, that never would have changed.”
I swallow, trying to conjure a memory of the funeral, but it doesn’t come. Neither does the meaning of what Ethel is trying to tell me, though she watches my reactions closely as though imploring me to catch on. “I really don’t understand. Are you saying you think they won’t make a move against Rowan once he and Sloane are married, because they won’t interfere with her vows …?”
Ethel chuckles and shakes her head. “No. They care about Sloane, of course. But they care because you do. They took Sloane in because of what she did for you at Ashborne. But it’s your happiness that is their priority. Your heart they can’t bear to break.”
“So, what … if it was me getting married …?”
Notes that felt discordant suddenly blend together. A chord that rises from chaos.
“Look down at your lap again, girl,” my aunt says, and I drop my gaze to the wedding dress draped across my legs. “And tell me more about Lachlan Kane.”