Page 38 of No Longer Mine (Rags & Riches #2)

Don’s body tensed beside me, his hand instinctively hovering near his waistband—not that I needed him to use the gun, but I appreciated the instinct. His eyes flicked toward the grand staircase, then down the halls branching off the main room.

“How recent?” he asked, voice low.

I shrugged. “Maybe earlier today, maybe last week. I can’t really tell, but whoever it was is long gone now.” My eyes tracked the way one set of footprints went all the way into the commons, up the stairs, and down the other side. Whoever came was in a hurry to leave.

I followed the footprints into the next room.

My eyes skipped over everything. It seemed like whoever was here only wanted to walk through and see.

Nothing else was disturbed. I immediately marched to the grand fireplace on the side of the room and blew on the photographs placed there.

Dust swirled around me as faces were revealed.

Smiling faces of children playing instruments and painting. I didn’t recognize anyone.

I groaned with frustration as I moved on. I followed the footsteps back out of the common room and up one side of the grand staircase. Don followed close on my heels.

The footprints led straight down the hall, past crumbling doors with tarnished brass handles. The carpet was stiff with dust, but the tread marks were clear—a straight path to a door at the end of the corridor.

Don muttered behind me, “This place gives me the creeps.”

I ignored him, pausing in front of the door. The paint was chipped, the edges warped from time and neglect. I tested the handle. It turned with ease.

The door groaned as I pushed it open, the dim light from the hallway spilling into the room. The room had beds lining the walls. Each one was just a bed frame now, the mattresses long gone. Had all of the children lived here together?

The footprints continued to the one bed all the way at the end of the rows. The bed was shoved up against the wall, and in the posts were deep carvings… No, not carvings. Notches.

Dozens of them, maybe more, were etched into the frame with a steady, straight hand.

“What the hell is this?” Don muttered, stepping in beside me.

I didn’t answer. My fingers skimmed over the notches, the weight of them pressing into my chest like something heavy and unspoken.

This wasn’t random vandalism. This was a record.

A countdown. A survival tally. My eyes skimmed over the other bed frames; none of them had this.

I pushed past Don and walked out of the room.

There was nothing else in there that would show me or prove to me that she had been here.

“You know, you could always ask her,” Don said, and I chose to ignore him. What was the fun in that?

I searched each room high and low. Not a single one had any more pictures or even an album.

I felt like I was wasting my time until I saw a little polaroid snapshot sitting abandoned at a worn-down piano bench.

There she was. Smiling up at me. A younger version of Scarlett with the woman pictured that we couldn’t find a record on, a blonde girl with a gappy smile, and Oliver.

I rubbed the collecting dust off of the picture and looked down at the radiant girl.

“Found you.”

My lips turned down into a frown. I didn’t like this one bit.

Anyone else could have found her. For whatever reason, that didn’t sit well with me.

I looked at Don over the crushed and destroyed instruments around me.

“Start dragging those mattresses that were piled up in the bedroom down to the main floor.”

His eyebrows jumped. “You want me to unearth an entire colony of rats?”

I stared at him. He rolled his eyes before he slunk off, not so happy with his assignment. I would go help him, but I needed a minute alone to soak it all in.

Scarlett’s childhood was trapped within these walls, and for the first time in, well, my entire life, I felt sadness. It pulled and yanked at my chest in a way I wasn’t familiar with.

“Who are you, Scarlett, and why were you erased?” I whispered to the empty room before I stood to go help Don with the rat problem. I smirked as I went. For a big burly man, he sure was afraid of rats and hauntings. I would never let him live this down.

My security detail had most of the mattresses piled up by the stairs by the time I made it over to him. I lifted a brow as he dusted his hands off on his pants. “Well, there weren’t rats, so it was a lot easier to get it done.”

“Uh huh.”

He rolled his eyes. “What are we doing?”

“Do you still smoke?” I asked.

“Are you obsessed with the redhead?”

I blinked at him.

He sighed. “Yes, I still smoke.”

I held out my hand. “I need your lighter.”

He handed it over without further questions.

“If we could find her, I’m sure anyone else could too.

There’s probably plenty of proof she existed somewhere within these walls.

” I’d pocketed the picture of Scarlett. I wanted to see her face when I told her I knew who she was.

I grabbed one of the crumbling chairs and tossed it onto the pile. Don looked at the pile with contempt.

“This is never going to burn. Be back in a minute.” He shook his head as he walked out of the house, only to return a few short minutes later with a full can of gas.

“I hope we won’t need that on the way home,” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest.

He rolled his eyes at me as he dumped the contents onto the pile of mattresses and the broken chair. “For your information, I always keep two.”

“You do that much arson?”

Don’s brows immediately wrinkled. “Can you hurry up with this illegal activity so we can get out of here before we’re seen?”

I flicked the lighter on and threw it at the pile. With a huge whoosh, it was lit.

I walked out of the house and away from the burning pile with Don on my heels. We could wait in the car while the house burned down. I doubted anyone would come to put it out. We were far enough from civilization.