“Then use my money.”
Her eyes flashed. “Your money helped bury her.”
I flinched.
A door opened behind her. An older man stepped out from the motel office holding a towel, his gaze moving between us. He did not interrupt, but he did not go back inside either.
Megan noticed him and seemed to draw strength from his presence.
I lowered my voice. “I found the payments to Gregory. I have copies of records. I can get lawyers involved quietly. Not company counsel. Independent. I can hire investigators who weren’t part of this.”
“And when your mother finds out?”
“She won’t.”
Megan gave me a look that almost resembled the woman I had once known—the one who could hear weakness in a contract clause from across a table.
“Rowan,” she said, “your mother always finds out.”
I wanted to deny it. Instead, I remembered being ten years old, hiding a cracked vase behind the curtains, only for Evelyn Bellamy to find it before dinner and ask me whether lying felt more comfortable than courage.
