The Secrets She Kept Read Online Free

needed to turn off the headlights. His BMW did it automatically; he’d forgotten that most cheaper vehicles didn’t.
    Although the rain was still falling heavily, soaking his hair, jacket and jeans, he spent a few minutes searching for the groundskeeper, Tyrone, to no avail. The place looked deserted. Since it was after five, Tyrone must’ve left. Or maybe he hadn’t come today. No doubt Josephine’s death had thrown the hired help into chaos. If Keith had his guess, they were all at home, fearing they were out of a job, grieving for their own loss if not for the loss of their tyrannical employer.
    Flinging his wet hair out of his face, he hurried up the front steps to the wide veranda. The door was locked but, within minutes, he found the key hidden behind the porch light—the same place it had been since he was a teenager. Although he didn’t want to think about it, that meant anyone else who knew about the spare could’ve gotten in without breaking a window or making a fuss...
    He swung open the heavy front door and stepped into what he had, for years, sarcastically referred to as his mother’s “palace.”
    The scent of fresh-cut flowers, which were changed regularly, rose to his nostrils. That was when the fact that she was really gone hit him—conjuring up a startling and profound sense of loss. Regardless of what his mother had done over the years, what he struggled to forgive, she’d been a magnificent woman in many ways. He’d never known anyone stronger or more determined to reach whatever goal she had in sight. Everything she did was done well. She had a sharp tongue but a sharp mind, as well—coupled with the face and figure of a femme fatale, a woman who’d looked two decades younger than her true age. Everyone’s head turned when she walked into a room; he remembered certain moments when he’d taken great pride in being connected to a figure people revered that much.
    Maisey had often told him he couldn’t get along with her because they were too much alike. He hadn’t been able to see it then, but these days he could easily recognize that they both had to be on top, in charge. They were what his father used to diplomatically refer to as “strong” personalities.
    His father hadn’t admired “strong” personalities quite like Grandpa Coldiron had.
    God forbid that Keith made other people’s lives as miserable as his mother had made his—although he certainly used to.
    Thinking of Grandpa Coldiron, Keith walked into the dining room, where there was a giant portrait of his grandfather looking every bit as somber and austere as the paintings of the old aristocracy hanging in the castles and palaces of Europe. His grandfather had been a “strong” personality, too. And he had accomplished great things. There were benefits to the genes he’d inherited, Keith decided—as long as he could control his temper and his drive.
    Before the quiet stillness could press too close, he left the dining room and took the stairs up to the second story. He found no crime scene tape, nothing to bar him from entering certain rooms. Coldiron House was eerily normal, far more normal than he’d thought it would be. When someone as powerful as his mother passed away, shouldn’t there be more to mark the event?
    Once he reached the double doors of her bedroom, he had to pause, to brace himself for what he might see. He didn’t expect to encounter a bloody mess, or anything like that, but he knew he’d imagine finding her the way he’d been told she was found—and that would be disturbing.
    Another expansive flower arrangement confronted him when he went in, only this one hadn’t been ordered as part of the household routine. He knew because it included a card.
    Keith wasn’t in any hurry to reach the bathroom. He was too busy preparing for what the sight of it might do to him. So he took a second to see who the flowers were from.
    I can’t wait.
    H
    “Hugh,” he said to himself, recalling the name