The GPS guided me away from the bright lights of the luxury high-rises and down a secluded, unpaved road flanked by towering fan palms. At the very end of the trail stood a low-slung, mid-century house, dark and shrouded in overgrown brush.
Parked in the driveway was a black SUV.
Beside it sat Lucas’s rental car.
My hands were completely steady as I turned off my headlights and coasted to a stop along the dirt shoulder.
I slipped the gun into my coat pocket, grabbed the brass key, and stepped out into the dry desert heat.
The air was dead silent, save for the hum of the air conditioning unit running at the side of the house. I tiptoed up the concrete steps to the front door.
The brass key fit smoothly into the lock.
Click.
I turned the handle and pushed the door open.
Inside, the house smelled of dust, old wood, and fresh paint. Sunlight from the patio reflected dimly off plastic-wrapped furniture.
Then I heard the voices coming from the back room.
“You don’t understand, Melanie,” Lucas’s voice was low, smooth, and dangerously calm—the exact tone he used when trying to gaslight me. “I did this for us. For our baby.”
“You lied to me!” Melanie’s voice was sob-racked and terrified. “You told me your wife was crazy! You told me you never knew my family! But I found the picture, Lucas! I found my mother’s ring in your suit pocket!”
“Your mother left that behind when she abandoned us!” Lucas snapped, his composure slipping for a fraction of a second. “She was going to ruin everything. Just like Anne’s father tried to ruin me. But I fixed it. I took care of all of it.”
“She didn’t abandon us,” Melanie cried out. “What did you do to her, Lucas? What did you do to my mother?!”
I stepped into the doorway of the dimly lit study.
“He buried her,” I said cleanly.
Both of them whipped around.
Melanie was tied to a wooden chair, her cheeks streaked with tears, her hands bound behind her.
And there stood Lucas.
He wore a linen shirt, his sleeves rolled up, holding a stack of burned, charred paper over a metal trash can. The blue legal folder lay open on the desk beside a lighter.
For three seconds, nobody moved.
The shock on Lucas’s face was magnificent. The color drained from his skin, his smooth, effortless mask shattering into a thousand irrecoverable pieces.
