My stomach clenched. “Okay.”
She brushed hair behind her ear, nails immaculate. “Mom and Dad never updated it after… you know, after college. It probably still lists us both equally.”
I stared at her. “Why are we talking about this while they’re unconscious?”
Her eyes widened like I’d slapped her. “I’m just being practical. We have to be.”
Practical. Again. Like the most important thing in the room wasn’t my parents fighting to wake up.
Miles came up behind me and Kara’s gaze flicked to him, annoyed, like he was an interruption.
“What did the fire inspector say?” she asked him, too casual.
Miles didn’t blink. “He said someone tampered with the safety system.”
Kara’s smile twitched. “That’s extreme.”
“You know what’s extreme?” My voice shook. “Two CO detectors without batteries. A missing clip history. A vent pipe loosened.”
Kara’s face hardened. “Are you accusing me?”
The question hit the air like a match near gasoline.
I could’ve lied. I could’ve softened it. I could’ve protected the fantasy that she was still my sister.
Instead, I heard myself say, “Where were you, Kara? Really.”
Her jaw clenched. “I told you. A retreat.”
“What’s it called?” Miles asked, calm.
Kara hesitated. Half a second too long. “It’s… small. Private.”
Miles nodded like he was humoring a child. “Show us a receipt.”
Kara’s cheeks flushed. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
“You kind of do,” I said, and my own voice scared me.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing? If you point fingers and you’re wrong, you’ll destroy this family.”
The irony almost made me laugh.
Before I could respond, my phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number.
It was a photo.
A screenshot, actually, from a real estate listing.
My parents’ house. Their address. A note beneath it: Great location. Cash buyers ready.
I stared so hard my eyes watered.
Miles leaned in, reading over my shoulder. His expression went still. “Who sent that?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Kara’s eyes landed on the screen. For the first time, her composure cracked. Her lips parted like she was about to say something and then thought better of it.
That tiny slip told me more than any confession could.
Later, while Kara went to get “air,” Miles drove to the hardware store listed on the receipt. He came back an hour later with a look I’d never seen on him before—like he’d stepped too close to something rotten.
“The cashier remembered her,” he said.
My throat tightened. “Kara?”
He nodded. “She bought the flue kit and the batteries. She joked about ‘finally making the old place safe.’”
Safe.
I tasted bile.
That same evening, I walked past a quiet hallway near the elevators and heard voices.
Kara’s voice.
And a man’s voice I recognized from family dinners—Owen, her fiancé. He always wore expensive shoes and smiled like he was selling something.
“She’s getting suspicious,” Kara hissed.
Owen’s voice was low, impatient. “She can be suspicious. It doesn’t matter if we control the paperwork. If they don’t wake up, the house gets tied up in probate and—”
Kara snapped, “Don’t say that here!”
Owen sighed. “Kara, we’re in too deep. Just stick to the story.”
My blood went cold.
I backed away silently, heart hammering so hard I felt it in my throat.
My sister wasn’t just worried about my parents.
She was worried about timing.
And as I stood there shaking, my phone buzzed again—this time with a call from the detective.
“Jamie,” he said, voice serious, “we ran Kara’s alibi. The retreat photos she gave us? They’re stock images pulled from the internet.”
My vision blurred.
Because if she lied about where she was… then what else had she been lying about this whole time?
Part 5
When my dad finally woke up, it wasn’t dramatic. No movie moment. No sudden sit-up with a gasp.
His eyes just opened slowly, like he was swimming up from a deep, ugly lake.
I was the first person he saw. His gaze drifted to my face, unfocused, then sharpened with effort.
“Jamie?” His voice was cracked, like paper tearing.
