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I shower and head to the library an hour before I’m due to meet Isla. Mrs. Nowak, the librarian, jumps up from her seat behind the reference desk when she sees me.
“Caden Everton,” she says, beaming. Her glasses hang by a beaded chain around her neck and her graying hair is pulled back in low ponytail. “I heard you were back in town.”
“Hey Mrs. Nowak,” I say. “I was wondering if you could help me with something.”
“Of course,” she says.
“I’m looking for all the articles that were written about my mother’s murder.”
Mrs. Nowak’s kindly face clouds over. “What a tragedy,” she says. “Marion was so loved by this community. We were all devastated by her death.”
She leads me over to a row of computers with dividers between each one. With a few keystrokes, she’s brought up a page filled with headlines of various articles.
“Here you go,” she says. “This is everything we have, from the local papers to the national news.”
“It made national news?” I ask.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Nowak says. “There were a few days where you couldn’t go anywhere in this town without running into reporters.”
I feel a wave of shame wash over me. My family was dealing with their grief along with an invasion of their privacy and I wasn’t there, as Von so aptly pointed out. It felt like the right decision at the time—but now I’m questioning everything. If I had stayed, how different might things be now?
I take a seat in front of the screen with renewed determination. No point in fretting over the past. I have to focus on the present. My family is counting on me.
I place my finger on the mousepad and click the first link.
CHAPTER TEN
CADEN
Each headline seems to scream at me.
Murder of Socialite Baffles Police
Tragedy on the North Fork!
Who Killed Marion Everton?
In Cold Blood—Everton Matriarch Shot to Death
So many photographs. So much information. Most of the it the same, repeated over and over. The suspected attempted burglary. The history of our family’s winery. Pictures of my family leaving the funeral—a funeral I didn’t attend. I did my own ceremony for Mom. I found a tiny church in a little town outside Buenos Aires and lit a candle for her. We aren’t a religious family. But the church was on a peak, overlooking the ocean, surrounded by rolling green hills. Mom would have loved it there.
I’ve been making a list of suspects in my phone. The sheriff talked to two employees that Dad fired—they weren’t named but I can guess who they were based on the descriptions of the complaints. Guess the sheriff couldn’t keep it all quiet. One insisted she was fired because she got pregnant. Elsa Lowendale. Dad was going to fire her anyway—it had nothing to do with her pregnancy. She worked in the New York office and was always late with reports. And Carl Fillion. He was fired for trying to embezzle money. He wriggled out of the charges—probably thanks to some lawyer like Von.
I wonder if Fred Norman can help me track them down.
Noah would laugh at me, sounding like some PI from an old movie. I click to the next page and my head starts to spin as I see a new group of headlines. Even though I was expecting them, it’s still shocking.
Could the Son Be Responsible for His Mother’s Death?
Heir to Murder—Eldest Everton Suspected in Slaying
A Family Affair: Son Flees after Socialite’s Murder
There’s a picture of me at an event with Mom and Dad. Dad’s holding a plaque and the two of us are smiling on either side of him. Some stupid fake award he received from a charity Mom supported.
I start to read the article.
Ever since the brutal murder of his mother, Marion Everton, eldest son Caden, heir to the Everton fortune, appears to have fled the country. Is this a sign of grief—or something more sinister?