“Oh shit,” he said, dropping the book in his hands. “What’s in it?”
Noelle, wide eyed, laid the book on the bed and took the piece of paper out that was on top, unfolding it. Evan saw that her hands were shaking.
Her eyes moved over the paper, and she looked up at him, her expression set in confusion. “It’s a travel itinerary,” she said. “To Hawaii.”
“Hawaii?”
She nodded, reading over the paper again and then handing it to Evan. He took it and skimmed it, confirming that it was travel plans. It looked like her mother had been planning a trip to Hawaii.
“It was my dad’s dream to go there,” she said distractedly.
“Was your mom planning a trip for them?”
“I mean . . . it was about to be their anniversary. But . . . Evan, if she was having an affair, why plan a romantic trip to the place my dad had always dreamed of going?”
He had no answer for that. “What else is in there?”
Noelle had been staring off behind him for a second, obviously attempting to work out that puzzle. At his question, she gave her head a small shake and then removed a folded envelope from the small compartment and unfolded it. She pulled out a short stack of photos. “Oh my God,” she breathed, dropping them like they’d burned her skin.
Evan picked one up, bringing it closer to his face. His own hand was shaking too. That was definitely his home theater, the way it had looked many years ago, when he was a teenager. Before and after Noelle’s mother was shot. Bile moved up his throat at what became clear. He wanted to shut his eyes, to throw away the horrific evidence of what had been caught on film.
The photo was from behind the couch, near the doorway, he estimated. A man could be seen sitting in front of the screen, his hand on his genitals. A small portion of the screen showed in the upper corner. The edge of a cage and what looked like something unidentifiably bloody behind the bars. “Oh Jesus,” he gasped, dropping the photo as well.
It was his father. He was sure of it. The photo had been taken from behind. It had to have been Noelle’s mother who’d taken it. There was no intimacy happening. His father hadn’t known she was there.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The Sinclair estate was far more massive than she’d pictured it. And she’d pictured it often, because she’d imagined her mother’s death again and again. She’d seen her as the news articles and live reports had described her: a vindictive, jilted lover, obsessed with the man who had recently broken her heart.
It hadn’t made sense as far as the woman Noelle had known her to be, even though the story had never wavered.
Evan took her hand, leading her through the back gate that had required a code typed into its lock. The same way their cages had required a numerical code so long ago. She shoved that memory aside. Her nervous system was already clashing and clanging. She hardly needed to create more anxiety.
Evan released a breath when the gate clicked open, apparently relieved that the security code hadn’t been changed. He’d told her he hadn’t been to the house in months and security was changed semiregularly, so they’d gotten lucky. Whatever else Evan’s father considered his son, a threat wasn’t one of them.
Noelle’s head turned in each direction as they made their way through the manicured gardens, hurrying around a corner when they saw the back of a gardener, a pair of shears in his hand as he clipped at a bush.
“Are you sure your dad’s out of town?” she whispered as they walked along a pathway beneath the eave of the house.
“He was yesterday,” Evan said. “He texted me from New York. He’s been there for a week.”
Her speeding heart rate decreased slightly. New York was across the country. That made her feel a little more secure, whereas even the gun tucked into a holster at Evan’s waist had not. On the chance that Mr. Sinclair did see them on the security cameras she didn’t have to assume were everywhere on this property—she could see one placed at the corner of the roof, and there’d been another one on the gate—he couldn’t do much about it. He could call the police, she supposed, but Evan was his son and could easily come up with a reason for being here. She, however, was a different story, and she tried her best to stay slightly behind Evan, hiding her face from view of any cameras.
But what she really hoped was that the man was in some meeting on the fortieth floor of a skyscraper and would be none the wiser.
Evan typed another code into a keypad next to a pair of french doors, and those clicked open too. Noelle followed him inside, stepping into a luxurious home office with floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves that featured a library ladder that she could see moved on a rail around the entirety of the room, a gargantuan wood desk, and oil paintings she could only assume were originals, lit by gallery lights.