He blows out a breath. “When is it?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Good. That gives me some time to prepare for it.” He winds around the bed to collect his laptop. “I found some more info on the business that owns the cabin. Does the name Jill Thomford ring a bell?”
I shake my head as I rotate around to face him. “Why?”
“That’s the name listed as the owner of the hunting business that owns that house. When I searched for the name, numerous results appeared. It’ll take me a while to sort through them and see if any of these Jill’s are linked to it somehow.
I bob my head up and down with my lips pressed together. “I still think we should try that key I have on the gate. I knowyou said if we trespassed, that anything we found would be dismissed in court, but what if the key does unlock the gate?”
“I think I should look more into this Jill Thomford and go from there.” He sits down on the bed again with the laptop on his lap. “Even if the key goes to the gate, we still need to figure out why your mom had it in her room.”
“And why was Trystan looking for it?” What I don’t say aloud, because I know it’ll make Ellis even more hesitant to let me go to the wake, is that I wonder if Trystan will bother me about it while I’m there.
He nods, his fingers gliding across the keyboard. “I do think it’s odd Jerry was at that apartment just barely. Then your uncle shows up, takes who knows what from the crime scene, and then the police announce it’s not a real crime.”
“Clover told me that Jerry tried to get her to go to his parties all the time. I’m guessing they were probably like the one in that apartment.” A shiver of disgust rolls through my body.
His gaze flits up to me. “Do you know if she ever went to one?”
“She acted like she hadn’t, and the way she spoke to Jerry whenever he was around made it seem like she hated him enough to never go near him.” I pause, my gaze straying to the diary where a lot of Clover’s secrets are hidden. “But if she believed there was a connection to Jerry and Zoey’s death, she may have.”
“You could be right. It’s fucking unnerving how many people might be involved in this. It honestly seems like half the damn town is.”
“It’s not a very big town.”
“More than zero is too many to be involved in this.”
“True.” I contemplate everything we’ve discovered. “What do you even think this is? Like a cult?”
His fingers briefly stop moving on the keyboard. “I don’t want to label it that just yet.”
Just yet. However, that means he might later, once we’ve found out more.
If that turns out to be the case, then it means my parents were in a cult.
Which means I was, too.
It takes all of my willpower not to crumble. But I keep focusing forward on the future,, where hopefully some answers will finally be uncovered from the graves that have been sealed for years.
Ellis and I continue doing our research. I spend some time looking at the photo of the photo we found up on top of the cliff—the real one is sealed up in evidence. I’m trying to figure out if I know this girl in the photo. She looks vaguely familiar. At this point, that probably means I have met her, but my brain has erased her from my psyche. If I had to guess, though, I wonder if she’s related to my aunt.
Eventually, we call it a night. Ellis walks me to my car. The sun is setting behind the peaks of the mountains, casting a bleak look on the sky. Ellis waits for me to pull out of the parking lot before walking back toward the hotel. We agreed to meet up tomorrow morning before I go to the wake so we can go over details and he can set me up with a recording device.
My nerves are buzzing by the time I arrive at the house where Clara and I are staying, but I attempt to calm down before walking in to avoid adding to her stress.
“Hey,” I greet her as I enter the house.
She’s lounging on the sofa with Bailey curled up by her feet, and she has her laptop open. The moment I note her expression, it becomes evident that her mood matches mine.
“What’s wrong?” I ask as I toss the keys and my bag onto the end table.
“Well, I was bored, and so I stupidly started reading up on the body that was found the other day. And that led me down this rabbit hole I really wish I’d never gone down.” She sits up and lowers her feet to the floor. “Did you know that Star Meadows isn’t the only town where a girl was found dead with a word cut into her flesh? It happened one other time in this small town in Utah.”
I freeze, my back stiffening, my heart going eerily still in my chest. “What’s the name of the town?”
“Forkfield… Why do you look so pale suddenly?” she asks me. “Wait… Is that the town you lived in before your family moved here?”
