“Whatever,” he muttered. “We’ll be out by tomorrow.”
“I’m calling a locksmith this afternoon. All locks are being changed. The spare key situation is over.”
By the next afternoon, Kyle and Brittany were gone.
The locksmith invoice came to four hundred eighty-seven dollars. Four new locks and a garage reset.
The house was mine again.
Quiet.
Messy.
Bruised in ways that had nothing to do with furniture.
But mine.
The social fallout hit my mother slowly.
Within a week of the party, the story had moved through every hallway of Hillcrest Country Club. Eighty-five witnesses meant eighty-five retellings, eighty-five private conversations, eighty-five chances for people to compare the Donna Seward they knew with the woman on the video.
Aunt Linda called with an update.
“Your mother was asked to step down from the spring charity gala committee,” she said carefully. “They said they needed someone who could focus fully on the event.”
