Chapter 7: The Lawn Again

Stephanie typed the alarm code on the first try.

It was Dalton's mother's birthday, the same four digits he used for his phone, his laptop and the gym.

"He thinks nobody ever looks at his hands," she said.

The front door opened onto our hallway, which smelled like the candle I had picked out in March.

It was Sunday morning, a little after nine, and the house was empty.

Annette waited in the car with the engine running, because I had asked her not to come in.

"Closing papers first," I said. "Then everything in my name."

Stephanie nodded and followed me upstairs with a roll of garbage bags in her hand.

She had slept two hours in Annette's spare room, and she was wearing my jeans rolled up at the ankle.

The home office was at the end of the hall.

Dalton had cleaned it, and cleaned it badly. The desk drawers were open and half empty.

But the gray folder with the deed and the closing statement was still in the bottom file drawer, where I had put it myself.

I took it out and held it against my chest.

The statement on top of the stack listed the down payment in black type.

"One hundred and fifty-one thousand dollars from Holly Penland," Stephanie read aloud over my shoulder. "From Dalton Hargrove, forty-nine."

"The money he took was my father's insurance, not the down payment," I said. "The down payment is already in the house."

"Then it's yours as much as his."

"More."

We packed my laptop, my grandmother's quilt, my father's fishing rods and every receipt I could find.

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