I raised my phone and called my unit. “Move in now,” I said coldly. “There are dangerous criminals here.” Then I turned toward my parents and smiled.
Part 1: The Outhouse Secret
The smell reached me before the truth did—mold, urine, and something sour enough to make my stomach turn. Ten minutes earlier, my mother had been laughing over champagne as she called me the family’s greatest disappointment.
I had returned to Ridgecrest after three years away because my grandfather, Franklin Caldwell, had stopped answering my calls. My parents claimed he was traveling. Then they said he was confused. Finally, they insisted he wanted nothing to do with me.
At the dinner table, my father barely looked up from his steak. “Still doing that little government job?”
“I’m still employed,” I replied evenly.
My younger brother, Wyatt, smirked. He wore a diamond-encrusted watch worth more than the luxury vehicle he supposedly could not afford. “She probably files parking tickets.”
My mother lifted her wine glass, her eyes flashing with malice. “You’re useless, Peyton. Just like that pathetic old man rotting in the shed.”
The dining room went completely dead silent.
“What did you say?”
Her smug smile slipped, but only for a fraction of a second. “It was a joke, calm down.”
I stood up so quickly my heavy dining chair struck the hardwood floor with a deafening crack. My father immediately stepped out of his seat, blocking the back door. “Peyton, sit down.”
I looked at his hand resting tightly on the deadbolt. Then I looked at the fresh mud caked onto Wyatt’s designer boots. Then at the brand-new security camera positioned above the kitchen window—deliberately angled toward the backyard instead of the front driveway.
“You moved him outside,” I whispered, the realization hitting me like a physical blow.
