Part 1: The Outhouse Secret
The smell reached me before the truth did—mold, urine, and something sour enough to make my stomach turn. Ten minutes earlier, my mother had been laughing over champagne as she called me the family’s greatest disappointment.
Family
I had returned to Ridgecrest after three years away because my grandfather, Franklin Caldwell, had stopped answering my calls. My parents claimed he was traveling. Then they said he was confused. Finally, they insisted he wanted nothing to do with me.
At the dinner table, my father barely looked up from his steak. “Still doing that little government job?”
“I’m still employed,” I replied evenly.
My younger brother, Wyatt, smirked. He wore a diamond-encrusted watch worth more than the luxury
vehicle he
supposedly could not afford. “She probably files parking tickets.”
My mother lifted her wine glass, her eyes flashing with malice. “You’re useless, Peyton. Just like that pathetic old man rotting in the shed.”
The dining room went completely dead silent.
“What did you say?”
