Chapter 4 - The Yellow KitchenThe next Saturday, I told Julian that Delia and I were finally having the girls' night we'd postponed before the wedding, and that I'd be sleeping over at her place.
He kissed my forehead. Told me to have fun.
Instead, Delia drove us straight to the property tied to the transfers. The house sat at the end of a long gravel road, half-hidden by trees. We photographed the mailbox and a contractor's sign staked into the yard.
"That's enough," Delia whispered. "We've got the address. Let's go, Wren."
Then something along the side of the house caught my eye. Renovation plastic sheeting covered most of one wall, but a section had pulled loose in the wind. Through the gap, I could see straight into an unfinished kitchen.
Yellow cabinets.
Exactly like Millie had described.
"Wren." Delia grabbed my arm. "Don't."
I stepped closer anyway and raised my phone. I photographed the cabinets, a stack of moving boxes, an unfinished bedroom further down the hallway. A paint sample was clipped to the doorframe. One name was written across it in marker.
MILLIE.
My hand went cold around the phone.
"That's her name," I said.
"Wren." Delia's voice had dropped to something urgent now. "We need to go, right now."
A light flicked on somewhere inside the house. Then an alarm started screaming.
Headlights swung onto the gravel road behind us.
I couldn't stop staring at Millie's name written in that marker. Whatever Julian was building out here, his daughter clearly belonged in it.
There was no name on that paint sample for me.
A truck came barreling up the driveway, and I recognized it instantly.
May you like
Julian.
He was about to find out I knew everything, standing right here in the dark with a phone full of evidence.
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