Her name comes out rough. Warning. Plea. Both.
Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t cry. Sophie Montgomery doesn’t break easy. That is one of the first things I loved about her and one of the things currently putting a blade between my ribs.
“I don’t know all of it,” she says.
The room listens harder.
I hate that. I hate that all these people get to hear this. Hate that my fiancée’s secret is about to be dragged out in front of my brothers, their women, my maybe-sister, Royal’s broken-memory sister, and Cornbread’s experimental cornbread.
But there are too many threads tied together now.
Pearly Gates.
Missing girls.
Cider.
Amelia.
Sophie’s father.
My father.
Every dead man we loved or hated keeps leaving rot under our feet.
I take one step closer to Sophie. “Then tell me what you do know.”
Her fingers tighten around the phone. “I found records. Not enough to prove anything cleanly. Old donation trails. Property transfers. Payments through community funds. Some of it touched Pearly Gates. Some of it touched my father’s accounts, or accounts tied to Paradise Falls.”
The words hit the room like a match tossed into dry hay.
Beckie’s face changes first. She knows what land and families and old county money can hide. Oaks stands behind her, his hands slowly curling. Royal goes so still he looks carvedfrom churchyard marble. Becki’s pickle jar hits the table with a dull thunk.
Cider looks lost.
Amelia looks sick.
Derby mutters, “Well, fuck.”
Cornbread looks confused.
I hear all of it and none of it.
My world has narrowed to Sophie.
“You found records,” I say.
“Yes.”
“When?”
She flinches.
There it is.
The real answer.
Not today.