Ellie locked herself into the library. There were no papers to collect but Meredith wouldn’t know the difference. Of all the shallow, selfish people she’d met, Dad’s second wife was the worst. No apparent distress at her husband’s disappearance, instead, she was content to eat cupcakes in the sun.
Before she could wind herself up any further, Ellie searched through the drawers in her desk again. The place that the rum bottle normally occupied was still empty.
Dad’s desk was just as useless. He kept even less here than at the office, apart from a small pile of novels on the corner of the desk. She sat there, eyes roaming along the bookcases to the far wall. Clichéd as it might be, his safe was behind a painting.
She rarely opened this and hesitated before touching the artwork, a simple w
