I leaned back slightly into the couch.
“She buried herself.”
Peterson didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
My phone buzzed on the table. Unknown number. I knew who it was before I picked it up.
Emily.
Kathy. I didn’t know. Melissa lied to me too. Can we talk?
Grandma leaned closer, reading over my shoulder.
“She’s trying to protect herself.”
I stared at the screen for a second.
“Should I respond?” I asked.
Peterson shook his head slightly. “Only if it benefits the case. Otherwise, no contact.”
I turned the phone face down.
No response.
The house felt different now. Not like it belonged to my parents anymore. Not like it belonged to anyone. Just empty space waiting for whatever came next.
Peterson packed up his briefcase after another ten minutes, moving efficiently like someone who had seen endings like this before.
“I’ll file the additional charges in the morning,” he said. “Federal prosecutors will want to meet with you next week.”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He paused for a second, then added, “You handled that well.”
I didn’t know what that meant. Handled, like this was something you could prepare for.
He left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Grandma stood slowly. “I’m staying at the Sherin tonight,” she said. “You should come with me.”
I looked around the room.
“My home,” I said quietly, though it didn’t feel like one. “My parents are in jail.”
She studied my face for a second, then nodded.
“Stay if you need to,” she said. “But don’t stay too long.”
She kissed my forehead before she left.
And then I was alone.
I lay down on the couch sometime after that, staring up at the ceiling. 3:27 a.m.
My phone rang.
Caller ID: Los Angeles County Jail.
I let it ring twice before answering.
“Kathy.” Marcus.
His voice sounded different. Not confident. Not controlled. Just tired.
“Kathy, please,” he said. “Just listen.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I’ll give you everything,” he continued quickly. “The house, the money, all of it. Just drop the charges.”
I closed my eyes.
“You have nothing to give me,” I said.
Silence.
Then: “Kathy, I’m your brother.”
That word. Brother. It felt distant now, like something from another life.
“You were,” I said.
I let the silence sit there, not to hurt him. Just because it was true.
“You don’t understand,” he said. “We can fix this.”
I opened my eyes and stared at the dark ceiling.
“You took everything,” I said quietly. “And you expect me to fix it for you?”
“Kathy, the house was already mine—”
“No,” I cut in. “The house was already mine. The money was already mine. You can’t give me back something you stole.”
He didn’t answer right away, and for the first time, I heard it—the realization, not just that he was in trouble, but that there was no way out.
I ended the call, set the phone down on the table, and lay there staring into the dark.
Marcus was right about one thing. He had been my brother. Past tense. And for the first time since all of this started, that felt final.
The next few days moved fast in ways that didn’t feel real. Updates came through Peterson in short, controlled bursts, like he was managing damage in layers.
Bail hearing results. Marcus denied bail, flight risk due to offshore accounts. My parents released on bail they couldn’t afford, borrowed money from relatives who now knew exactly why they needed it. Court dates scheduled. Charges expanding. Everything they had tried to hide was now documented, filed, and impossible to undo.
I didn’t go to any of it. I didn’t sit in courtrooms. I didn’t watch them explain themselves. I had already seen everything I needed to see.
Instead, on January 5, I rented a small truck and drove to Malibu.
Everything I owned fit in the back. Two suitcases, a box of books, my laptop. That was it. Four years of my life reduced to something that didn’t even fill the space.
The address had been burned into my memory by then. 2847 Pacific Coast Highway.
I had looked it up more times than I could count in the days after the party. Street View, satellite images, trying to convince myself it was real. It never quite felt that way.
Not until I pulled into the driveway.
The house stood there exactly the way it had in the photos. Clean lines. Glass walls. Ocean stretching out behind it like it belonged to the property itself. It looked like something that should have required a different version of me to step into it.
I sat in the truck for a minute, just looking at it.
Then I got out.
