Page 81 of Our Little Secret

“I know, and I appreciated it.”

“Maybe you should talk to an attorney.”

Leah was nodding. “I spoke with one in Phoenix, but he knows Sean and wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole. He said I should work things out with Sean. In his opinion that would be the least expensive, but there’s no way that’s going to happen.” Her jaw tightened. “It’s beyond that. I thought maybe Neal might help.”

“Neal isn’t a divorce attorney, and even if he were, he doesn’t have a license in Arizona,” she started to argue.

“But you know, he might know someone who knows someone, or at least he could give me some professional advice, like, off the record.” She cleared her throat. “I just need to talk to someone.”

And that someone would have to be a man, Brooke finally understood. That was the way it was with Leah, always seeking male companionship, male advice, male opinions. The sisters had grown up without a father figure in their lives and they’d taken different approaches. Brooke believed in womanpower and that a woman was equal if different from a man. Leah was always seeking male approval, searching for a daddy who didn’t exist.

And right now they were both in trouble.

“Let’s see what he has to say,” she finally decided and tapped with one knuckle on Neal’s closed office door.

“It’s open.”

She twisted on the knob and found him lying on the sofa near the window, his ankles propped on the arm, his iPad open. He straightened and shut the tablet as he saw the sisters crammed into the doorway. “What’s going on?”

“Leah wants to talk to you.”

“Okay,” he said, “sure. What’s up?”

“I need some advice,” Leah said, walking awkwardly into the room.

To his credit, Neal didn’t throw Brooke a beleaguered, oh-here-we-go-again look, even though this particular scenario had played out a couple of times before. “Have a seat,” he said, motioning to the overstuffed chair. “What’s up?”

Brooke took that as her cue to leave and shut the door behind her before heading into the kitchen. Her stomach was still on the queasy side and a headache was beginning to pound behind her eyes. She found a glass and filled it with water from the dispenser in the refrigerator, then took a long, cooling swallow before pressing the glass to her forehead. What was she going to do? As she set the glass on the counter, she saw the French doors hanging open and she paused.

Shep was curled in his bed near the table. She wondered how often she’d left the door ajar, allowing whoever to gain entrance. She wasn’t the only one; they all—she and Neal and Marilee—left the doors open for the dog to come and go throughout the day. Though Neal usually made certain the entire house was buttoned up at night, a habit Brooke had relinquished to him once he’d moved back in.

All that being said, someone unwelcome had been inside.

Someone with evil intentions.

Someone named Gideon Ross.

Her stomach soured and threatened to convulse again, and she closed her eyes, counted to ten, then to twenty, then fifty before the feeling subsided.

Then she, rather than wait for her husband, turned the dead bolt to the French doors, her gaze scanning the empty deck as she did so. Afterward she confirmed that all the doors were locked, starting with the front door, then heading downstairs to the garage and laundry room. Near the washer and dryer she paused. Not only did the laundry room open to the side yard, it also was connected to the old staircase—the “fire escape”—though that door was never used. Locked tight. She double-checked, and sure enough when she tried the knob it held fast.

But the key to the lock was on a ring that hung inside the cupboard over the washer. She looked again. The ring was there, in its spot, partially hidden by a jug of bleach. She slipped the ring off its hook and fingered the individual keys. This ring was the spare set and not all the keys to the house were included. They’d had the original set since they purchased the house and some of the keys were orphans. They obviously went to locks they’d never found and were useless, but in the group she recognized the old-style skeleton key to the back staircase.

She hesitated just a moment before unlocking the door to the aging staircase and stepping inside the dark, closed area. The switch for the single light that hung over the landing worked, thank God, but the bulb was dim, the steps narrow, the thin rail wobbly against dingy, wood-paneled walls. Swiping at cobwebs, she wound her way to the first floor as dust filled her nostrils and she tried to avoid the planks that were visibly rotted. At the wide top step that led to the back of the pantry she tested the door.

Locked.

Good.

She heard the muffled sound of voices. Leah and Neal. She couldn’t detect what they were saying; she could only make out a word here and there.

Heading upward, feeling a little claustrophobic, she heard the steps creak beneath her feet. Just as she’d heard the other night, her heart lurching at the thought.

At the landing on the second floor the stairs ended. She tried the door, but it didn’t budge. Good. Located next to the linen closet in the upstairs hallway, it was locked tight.

Only one more space. With more than a little trepidation, she glanced upward to the rungs that disappeared into the ceiling and led to the cramped attic beyond—an area they never used.

In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself. With her injured ankle protesting, she climbed up the ancient rungs, and as she ascended, sweating nervously, she told herself she wasn’t being paranoid. After all, she had heard someone in the house. Could there be some kind of camera or microphone that Gideon had planted inside? Was he that obsessed? Or was she that paranoid?