Chapter 4

The property manager pulled up the registration records.

On the day the request to change the locks was filed, I was away on a business trip.

But the system said "Owner consents," with a photo of my ID uploaded below it.

I knew that photo well. Two months ago, Evan had said the company needed to update its records on family members and asked me to send it to him.

I held the phone up in front of him.

"What is this?"

Evan glanced at it.

"The property office needed documents, so I used it."

"Who said you could use it?"

"Stella."

He lowered his voice.

"I'm just changing a lock for Rosalie, I'm not taking your house and selling it. The property office wouldn't allow the work, so I had to find a way."

The property manager looked a little uncomfortable.

"Mr. Matthews said you were busy with work and had entrusted him to handle the paperwork. We saw he was your husband, and he'd come here with you before, so..."

"So you didn't call me?"

The manager paused.

"No."

I nodded.

"Please pull up every construction and moving registration from this past month for me."

Evan spoke up at once. "Why are you looking into all that?"

"To see exactly how much of my house the two of you have touched."

The manager quickly brought up the records.

The earliest one wasn't half a month ago. It was twenty-seven days ago.

Rosalie and her mother came to measure the place.

Twenty-four days ago, the designer arrived.

Twenty-one days ago, the moving company came. After that came tearing out cabinets, painting walls, delivering furniture, installing lights.

More than a dozen entries in all. I scrolled down page by page.

In other words, when Evan first told me that "Rosalie might want a house closer by after she gets married," they had already finished taking the measurements.

When he asked me, "Isn't it kind of a waste that your mom's place has been sitting empty all this time?" the renovation plans were already drawn up.

He hadn't made a last-minute decision for his sister. He'd only been waiting for the right moment to inform me.

Seeing that I wasn't saying anything, Diane softened her tone.

"Things have already come this far. What's the point of chasing down who did what first? Rosalie's getting married tomorrow. Let her get through the wedding first."

I looked up.

"Where did my cabinet and my wicker chair go?"

Evan said, "Didn't I already tell you? They're in storage."

"There's no record of a delivery to storage in the moving log."

His expression stiffened, and I kept scrolling.

In the entry from twenty-one days ago, the purpose of the vehicle was listed as: old furniture removal.

Not a move. A removal.

I looked at him.

"Which storage?"

Rosalie's lips moved.

"Stella, that furniture really was so old. The renovation guys said there was nowhere to put it, so we..."

"So you what?"

Diane cut in.

"What's the use of keeping old things? That wooden cabinet is huge and heavy, and the wicker chair's finish was peeling."

"I asked where they went."

No one answered.

I picked up the contact number on the registration and dialed it right in front of them.

Once I gave the man the complex and the date, he spent a while going through his records.

"That run, I remember it. The wooden cabinet went to the secondhand furniture market on consignment, and the customer said they didn't need to keep the rest, so those were handled as scrap furniture."

I gripped the phone.

"What about the wicker chair?"

The man thought for a moment.

"The one by the window?"

"Yes."

"The legs on that were loose."

He paused.

"That one probably just got thrown out."

I didn't say anything. The man on the other end asked again:

"What's wrong? Didn't you all say the family agreed to have it cleared out?"

I looked at Evan. He avoided my eyes.