I wasn’t going to rummage through the office because that seemed like crossing a line. So I didn’t. I made it all the way to day five and then… I don’t know. I just got bored, I guess.
The office is very grand. Built-in bookshelves line three walls, but the fourth wall has built-in drawers below the windows. They were all locked but I found the keys in the desk.
I feel like staying here in this house, with this girl, has suddenly turned me into someone I’m not. Because Mason Macintyre isn’t normally the kind of guy who snoops through people’s private papers.
Until yesterday, apparently.
Because I looked through every single drawer. Most of it was boring shit. The deed to the house. Lyssa’s name on it. Which I find interesting for a few reasons.
One. If her stepfather is so disappointed with her, then why give her this estate? It’s kind of a big-deal place. All the acreage outside, the forest, the lawn, the twenty-one bedrooms. Like… OK. I guess he wants her to start a family. I get that part. But twenty-one bedrooms? Who the hell needs that many rooms? Does he think she’s going to open up an orphanage or something? Do they have some huge family that will come visit regularly? I mean, how many kids can one girl push out?
I dunno what she studied in college. I assumed it was something worthless like literature, or history, or art. Or something even more pointless like philosophy. Because the way she talked about her college let me know that it was one of those exclusive private liberal arts colleges. The place you send your daughter to get just enough educated brainwashing for her future career as a politician’s wife.
But maybe that private college taught her how to be an event planner? Because this place is more like a hotel than a home. In fact, it’s not a home. No one lives in a house like this. No one normal, that is. How would you even keep an eye on those kids? Like… they could get lost in here. It’s just so stupid.
The second reason having her name on the deed is the dumbest thing ever is because it’s so damn clear she didn’t want the estate. So my guess is—first thing this wild girl does when this whole wedding bullshit is over is sell it and get all the money. Then she won’t need her stepfather’s paycheck anymore.
Didn’t he consider this? Or is he so powerful that he’s not worried about it? Hell, I imagine it’s hard to sell a mansion like this under the best circumstances. And Baylor probably has every real estate agent within three hundred miles in his pocket. Or maybe everyone who could afford it would be too afraid of him to actually go through with the purchase?
I don’t know. It makes no sense at all. Fathers who have been perpetually disappointed in their crazy daughters don’t go out and buy them a country estate. They just don’t.
But then I noticed the date on the deed. It’s seven years old.
Seven years? What the fuck? He bought this place for her back when she was eighteen?
Why?
Has been empty this whole time? Lyssa didn’t seem familiar with it.
But she was familiar with the furniture in her princess room
What the fuck is going on?
I don’t know. But that was just the one drawer. The drawer next to it was even more confusing. It was filled with file folders. And inside the file folders were court papers for Lyssa.
Confusing thing number one about this drawer. She has been arrested sixteen times.
Sixteen. Fucking. Times.
She’s only twenty-five, for fuck’s sake. How does a girl like her get arrested sixteen times? And they’ve all happened in the past three years. Probably started around the time she finally managed to get through year five at that stupid over-priced college.
All her court folders are in chronological order and they start off with pretty typical stuff. Public drunkenness. Indecent exposure—I have to stop here and shake my head when I read the full report of how she flashed a cop by opening her legs getting into a limo. Because this would be the moment I’d pull my wild-thing daughter aside and say, “Hey, look, princess. I get that you dig the whole commando thing, but it’s time to put some panties on, OK?”
Apparently, Baylor didn’t do that. Because the next folder is also indecent exposure with the added bonus of a drug charge.
There’s a few more drug charges. Nothing about this is surprising if you’ve ever seen Lyssa in action. She looks like she does drugs.
Well, at least she did that night I kidnapped her. That heavy makeup on her eyes. All darked up and smoky. Her glossy lips and contoured cheekbones. The long, wild mane of blonde hair that gives off a just-fucked vibe, and that gold dress.