True Heiress Never Lies! novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Welcome Home

The house in Bay Village looked exactly the same.

White shutters, a blue door, the maple in the front yard shedding red leaves onto the walk.

It looked like a place where nothing bad had ever happened.

Estelle parked in the circle drive and turned off the engine.

"Your father will be home at six," she said. "Until then, behave."

"Where's Peter?"

"At school, where children are."

She went in ahead of me.

I climbed out slowly because my left leg dragged.

The night officer had stamped on my knee in March, and it had healed with a catch in it.

The front hall smelled of lilies.

On the wall hung a family portrait I had never seen.

My father in the middle, Estelle at his side, Kendra with a smile full of braces, and Peter in front.

I wasn't in it.

I stood and looked at the empty space where I should have been.

"We had it done last Christmas," Estelle said from the kitchen. "You were away."

I did not answer her.

I went up the stairs with one hand on the rail.

My bedroom door was the third on the left.

I pushed it open.

The walls were pink now.

My bed was gone, and a white vanity with a ring of lights stood where my desk had been.

A pile of fashion magazines lay across the floor, and a pair of silver heels sat on my mother's old reading chair.

"Oh," said a voice behind me. "You're here."

Kendra leaned in the doorway with her arms folded.

She wore a lavender dress, and she had grown into her face.

She still had the braces.

"This was my room," I said.

"It's my room now. Mom said you wouldn't mind."

"Where are my things?"

"Basement, I think. In boxes."

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