I pick up the pictures first, immediately recognizing a younger version of Gigi in them. Most of them, her smiling red lips stare back at me, the same man predominant in all the photos.
“Who is that?” I mutter, not expecting any real answer at the moment. I don’t recognize the man. He’s not pictured in any of the photographs that were hanging on the wall when I moved in.
Once I renovated the house, I decided to take them all down. I had decided that they’d judged me enough after the Greyson debacle.
Zade fucked me in that hallway last night—that’s as far as we made it before he pinned me up against the wall and took me from behind. When Zade and I had left the bedroom this morning, we had both discovered I had gouged nail marks into the paint. It was my only anchor with his hand firmly gripping my hair, bowing my body back, and using it as a rope as he fucked me into oblivion. I had collapsed after that orgasm, and he was forced to fuck me on the rug, right smack in the middle of the hallway.
I’ll never look at that spot on the rug or the wall the same.
So, I can only imagine how judgy their frozen eyes would be after not only seeing their descendent actually get railed this time, but by her stalker no less.
Thank god I took those down.
“Is there anything written on the back?” Daya asks, flipping over a few photos herself to look. I flip over mine and see a date written.
January 8th, 1944.
Several months before Gigi had started writing about her stalker.
In the picture is Gigi, smiling brightly up at the camera, her hair pinned into the type of curls you only saw in the 40s. Next to her, the unfamiliar man has an arm wrapped loosely around her, a slight smirk on his face. Something about him seems familiar, but I can’t put my finger on it.
“No names on this one," I observe, flipping over a few more pictures. All with dates but none that reveal the identity of the man.
We spread the photos out and arrange them in chronological order. The last picture is two weeks before her death.
Gigi seems to be curled in on herself, hunched and small as she holds a glass of wine. Her smile is strained, while the mystery man stands next to her, looking down at her with a pinched brow and a frown. At this point, she was already in fear for her life.
But from the man in the pictures, or someone else?
Next, I pick up the weathered letter. It’s addressed to Gigi.
My Genevieve,
It pains me to write this letter. I sit here and I mourn. For what could have been. For what could still be but yet you refuse to see.
I’ve loved you since the moment I saw you, Genevieve. I’ve loved you though you have married another. And now that I know you have given yourself to a different man—a man that’s not me, my love still persists.
I’ve waited so long for you already, and now yet another has come between us. Has stopped me from taking you as mine.
Why do you insist on doing this to me? To us?
It plagues me. Keeps me from sleeping at night. The only thing I can think of doing is cutting you from my life to end this misery. For good.
Sincerely,
Your true love
“What the fuck did I just read?” I ask in a strained whisper. Daya reads over my shoulder, and when I look back at her, her wide eyes are on me, alight with confusion and concern.
“That sounded ominous. Threatening,” she says, her green eyes glancing at the letter like it’s a curse written on paper.
I nod distractedly, setting down the note and sorting through the pictures again. Looking for clues on who this man might be.
But there are none.
“He looks so familiar,” I murmur, studying another picture. They look to be at a party of some sort. The image is in black and white, so I can’t tell the color of the dress, only that it’s a dark shade. Jewels decorate the ends of her sleeves and around the collar of the dress. And of course, I don’t need the picture to be in color to know she’s wearing her red lipstick.
The man has his hand resting high up on her thigh. With the way he’s clutching her, it almost seems possessive. Domineering.
I’ve never met this man in my life and yet I know he’s a damn bastard, that I can bet money on.
And by the strained smile on Gigi's face, and the tightening around her eyes, my great-grandmother clearly thought so, too.
“Hold on, let me take pictures and upload them onto my computer. I can do a reverse image search.”
I watch her do her thing, her brow pinched with concentration. Within minutes, she’s turning the laptop towards me, staring at me carefully.
“Mark’s father. That’s who’s in all these pictures.”
My eyes snap to hers while my heart rate picks up speed.
“Are you thinking the same thing as me?” I ask.
“What, that your great-grandfather’s best friend could have been in love with Gigi and killed her when he found out she was having an affair with a man that wasn't him?” she summarizes, plucking the exact thoughts out of my head.
She sighs and stares down at the photos. “I don’t know. It’s a big conclusion to come to just based off of some creepy photos and a note. While the note does have a threatening tone to it, it certainly isn’t enough to convict him of murder.”
I nod, having thought the same thing. Something about these pictures puts me on edge and gives me a creeping chill down my spine. As much as I revolted against Gigi's diary and how she fawned over her stalker, it never gave me a bad feeling the way the note and pictures do. Still, I can’t solve a murder case purely based on feeling. I need evidence.
“Logically, Gigi's stalker is still more likely, but that doesn’t mean Mark’s father being the murderer is out of the question,” she goes on, absently picking up one of the pictures and observing it.
“I see motive in this note. So, even if it’s a small chance, I think we should still look into it.”
“Have you found any more information on Ronaldo?”
She sighs. “Yes. He died in 1947 of a cardiogenic shock.” My brows plunge.
“A heart attack?”
She shifts. “A broken heart. He died of broken heart syndrome.” My mouth dries. “I found some family history on him, but not much else. His life was kept pretty tightly under wraps, and I assume his boss had something to do with that.”
“So, a dead end,” I conclude, nodding my head. I bite my lip, rolling it between my teeth as I contemplate my next move. “I think I need to go up into the attic,” I say with resignation. I may love ghosts, but fuck, that doesn’t mean I still have the desire to be possessed by a demon or whatever is up there.
Daya's sage eyes whip to mine. I told her about the last note I found and how I felt there was something very negative up there.
“You’re a masochist. You’re gonna get possessed if you go up there.”
I snort. “I think it would’ve done so by now if it really wanted to. There could be more up there.”
Daya sighs. “I’m going to die today,” she mutters.
“You won’t die, just maybe a little possession,” I chirp as I round the island and make way towards the staircase.
“Yeah, and guess who I’m terrorizing first?”
That cold, heavy weight instantly drops on my shoulders the second I enter the attic. It’s like in those cartoons when a piano drops out of the sky and lands on top of an unsuspecting person.