I spun and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Denise!” my mother shouted behind me, startled. “Where do you think you’re going?”
My father’s footsteps thundered after mine, heavier, angry. Kristen’s laugh followed, too light, too confident.
I reached the second floor landing and ran down the hall to the guest suite I’d furnished in neutral tones—soft gray bedding, a leather chair by the window, a small desk that no one had used yet. The door was closed.
It shouldn’t have been.
My hand hit the handle. I flung it open.
And my breath caught.
Suitcases lay open on the floor, spilling clothes like guts. A pile of glittery dresses—Kristen’s taste was unmistakable—hung from the closet door like she’d been trying on outfits and couldn’t be bothered to put anything away. A handbag sat tossed onto the bed. Makeup tubes, brushes, compacts littered the dresser like debris after a storm.
The room that had felt like a promise of peace now looked colonized.
For a second, the only sound was my own breathing, sharp and fast.
“What is this supposed to mean?” I asked, though the answer was already scalding in my throat.
Kristen appeared in the doorway behind me, leaning on the frame as if we were in some sitcom and this was the moment the audience laughed.
Her smile was small, smug, and then I saw what glinted in her palm.
A duplicate key.
Not just any key—one of the high-security smart keys I’d had specially commissioned when the house was designed. It wasn’t something you could copy at a random kiosk. It required authorization.
Kristen held it up like a trophy.
“Surprised?” she said, savoring it.
My stomach dropped, even though I’d already known. There’s a difference between suspicion and seeing proof in someone’s hand.
She twirled it between her fingers. “Dad helped me make it while you were away on that business trip to San Francisco.”
I felt my father step into the hall behind me, and my mother’s softer footsteps as she caught up. None of them looked ashamed. None of them looked like they’d been caught doing something wrong.
Kristen’s eyes gleamed. “Leaving one of your keys at Mom and Dad’s place was your fatal mistake.”
She said it like she’d outsmarted me, like she’d cracked a code.
“I figured it was basically a sign,” she continued, “saying family can use it freely. So I happily took you up on it.”