Page 40 of Little Bitter Truths
“When did you see him last?”
“I haven’t seen him since I took out the restraining order.But I … I …”
“Whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“I will, but I know what you’re going to say.You’ll ask why I didn’t bring him up before.”
“No, I won’t.At the start of this investigation, we were focusing on Wren.You had no reason to tell me about the people in your life.”
“Even now that the investigation is centered around me, I still can’t believe Christian would hurt me.Is he obsessive?Yes.A murderer?No.I just don’t see him as the kind of man who’d kill me rather than accept we can’t be together.”
“Sometimes we overlook things because accepting them would be too painful.”
“I suppose you’re right.”She blew out a long breath.“About a week after I started my new job and moved into the house, he sent me a card in the mail, congratulating me on my new position.”
“Which means he somehow learned about the job, knew you’d moved, tracked down your new address, and he wanted you to know he’d done it.Have you had any contact from him since?”
“None.I hope he’s finally moved on.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.Anyone else?”
She bit down on her lip, her gaze drifting toward the window, watching people pass by the coffee shop.
“This last one feels different, almost wrong to mention,” she said.
“Different how?”
“It’s a bit more complicated.”
In my line of work, I often found the more complicated the person, the stronger the suspect.
“My grandfather passed away about a year ago,” she said.“His name was Joseph.He owned a beachfront house in Santa Monica.In his will, he left the house to Wren and me, which was unexpected.”
“Why?”
“He never mentioned he was going to leave it to us before he died.”
“Why do you think he did?”
“We were in his life the most, but he always talked about selling the house and donating the proceeds to charity.After he died, I learned he’d made a lot of money in the stock market.Much of that was left to charity, and the house was left to us.In his will he talked about it being his happy place.He said he’d understand if we wanted to sell it, but his wish was for us to keep it in the family.”
“What did you plan to do with it?”I asked.
“When Wren told me she’d split from Cooper, we decided she should move into that house.We also talked about using it as a vacation rental in the future, but that requires a license from the city, and Wren would need to live on-site.We planned to rent it out from time to time and split the profits.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“It would have been.The house holds so many memories, and it brought us all so much joy over the years.We wanted to share that joy with others.”
“Sounds wonderful.I don’t see the problem.”
“When the will was read, our cousin Renee was devastated.She said our grandfather told her the house would go to her after he died.”
“What’s Renee’s last name?”
“Parker.”
I wrote it down.
