Chapter 2 - THE SCENT OF LAVENDER LIES
I stopped the recording.
Rain began tapping softly against the porch roof,
a gentle rhythm that felt like a funeral march.
No one moved.
For two years,
they had been loud.
They were loud at my sentencing,
loud when Derek told the judge I had always been “reckless with money.”
Loud when Brooke cried outside the courthouse,
and told reporters I had stolen from my own father.
Loud when my mother said she loved me,
but could not defend what I had done.
Now one dead man’s voice had made them quiet.
I looked at Brooke.
“Move.”
She did,
stepping aside as if I were carrying a plague.
Inside,
the house smelled wrong.
Not like my father’s coffee,
not like lemon oil and sawdust.
It smelled like lavender plug-ins,
new paint,
and someone trying to erase old wood with retail fragrance.
The living room had been rearranged.
My father’s recliner was gone,
his tool magazines were gone.
The framed photograph of him holding me on my first bike was gone.
In its place were beige pillows,
and a sign over the mantel that said Blessed Home.
I almost laughed.
Some people hang blessings over stolen rooms and call it decorating.
Derek followed me in,
his heavy footsteps echoing on the hardwood.
“You have no right to come in here and threaten people with edited recordings.”
I set my duffel bag on the floor.
“I didn’t threaten anyone.”
“You just played a dead man’s rambling.”
“Good. Then you won’t mind if my attorney hears it.”
His jaw moved,
his teeth grinding.
Brooke recovered faster,
her voice regaining its sharp edge.
“That house was left to family. You stopped being family when you pled guilty.”
“I didn’t plead guilty.”
“You were convicted.”
“Different thing.”
My mother sank into the armchair near the window,
the one that used to be Dad’s reading corner.
“Maren,” she said,
voice thin,
“we have been through enough.”
I looked at her,
feeling the cold void where my love for her used to live.
“No. I went through enough. You went through my room.”
Her face paled,
her hand fluttering to her throat.
Small payoff.
Guilt reacts fastest to specific accusations.
I walked down the hallway toward my old bedroom.
Brooke hurried after me,
her heels clicking a frantic beat.
“You can’t go in there.”
I opened the door.
My room was an office now.
White desk,
printer,
ring light.
Shelves full of Brooke’s online boutique inventory.
Boxes of cheap jewelry labeled with handwritten stickers.
The blue quilt my grandmother made was gone.
My books were gone.
My father’s framed Navy certificate was gone.
But the closet door still stuck at the bottom.
Same scrape against the floor.
Some things survive bad people by being inconvenient to replace.
I knelt and pressed along the baseboard inside the closet.
Derek laughed from the doorway.
“What are you doing? Looking for prison treasure?”
“No,” I said. “Dad’s floor safe.”
The room changed.
The air grew thick with a new kind of fear.
Brooke looked at Derek.
Derek looked at my mother.
My mother closed her eyes,
a silent admission of guilt.
The baseboard popped loose exactly where Dad had taught me,
revealing the secret he had shared only with me.
Behind it was a small metal door.
But the safe was empty.
Not unlocked,
not damaged,
just empty.
The keyhole was scratched,
marks of a tool forced in with desperation.
I stood,
turning to face them.
Derek said, “Dad cleaned that out before he died.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“You just said you didn’t know it existed.”
His mouth closed,
a trap he had set for himself.
Small payoff.
Lies hate memory.
I took a photo of the safe,
the flash of the camera illuminating their sins.
Then I took another.
Scratched keyhole.
Empty cavity.
The evidence of their greed.
Brooke folded her arms,
her face a mask of defiance.
“Take all the pictures you want. You’re still not staying here.”
“I don’t plan to stay.”
That surprised her.
She blinked,
her confidence faltering.
“I came for two things,” I said.
Derek narrowed his eyes.
“What things?”
“My father’s files.”
“They don’t exist.”
“And the truth about the night I went to prison.”
May you like
No one spoke.
The silence was a confession in itself.
