Page 177 of Our Little Secret

Yeah. On the ferry. Brrr. Wish you were with us.

Marilee added a Mrs. Santa Claus emoji.

A blade of guilt sliced through Brooke’s heart.

Had things been different she would have gone with them to the service.

Had things been different she would trust her husband and her sister.

Had things been different she never would have allowed Gideon Ross into her life.

Now it was time to get rid of him forever.

CHAPTER 38

Brooke kept the bandage on, just in case anyone returned. She hadn’t really hurt herself seriously. Yeah, she’d bumped her shin and tweaked her ankle, but she knew it wasn’t sprained. She’d staged the accident so she could skip mass and have time alone in the house.

With Shep curled on his bed and snoring softly, she went outside. Her fingers ached instantly from the freezing air, but she put up one last little camera, this one over the back door to take in the porch, yard, and door to the woodshed.

Once inside again she started up the stairs.

“Forgive me,” she said to a picture of Nana on the landing. Her grandmother wouldn’t have approved of her lying to get out of mass, especially at Christmas, but then, there were a lot of things Nana wouldn’t have liked about Brooke. Maybe she’d work on all those supposed faults come the new year. That would be her resolution—if she survived.

Her leg ached a bit and her headache was threatening again, but she ignored the pain, made her way to her bedroom, and pulled out her laptop.

Hoping beyond hope that Caleb had gotten back to her, she checked her email.

She found nothing she didn’t recognize.

“Come on, come on.”

Time was ticking by.

She figured she had two and a half hours, maybe three at the most until the others returned.

With time ticking by she rapidly sifted through her spam folder.

Still nada.

Then she searched the guest room again, found nothing consequential, and left Eli’s wallet under the bed, not far from where she’d found it. She decided not to tip him off yet, but deep down wished it was a dead rat. Wouldn’t that be perfect? And Leah would have an absolute heart attack.

She kept the knife.

It had proved useful so far.

In the hallway she double-checked that her cameras were working, and the images of the areas she was surveilling appeared on her phone when she accessed Clayton Electronics’ security app.

All good.

Returning to her room, hearing the wind picking up and rattling the windows, she went through the footage the little spy cameras had taken and caught the fight downstairs, Leah stomping down the hallway and then, in the guest room, what appeared to be an argument between her sister and Eli. There was no sound so she couldn’t hear what they were discussing, but Leah was pouting. Again.

No surprise there.

But Eli looked straight into the camera’s lens, as if he knew the tiny device was recording everything.

Brooke held her breath, thinking he would come over and pick up the picture frame, discover the camera, and remove it.

But he didn’t.