Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 147
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145038 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
I understand what she’s saying.
Rocky and Trevor might not be biologically related in real life, but they’re her siblings in this town. She can’t exactly start making up a family history of lung disease without talking with her brothers.
We’ve never really made aliases that are this indelible.
“I can drive you to Rhode Island,” I say. “Take one of your fake IDs, so you don’t have to have any paperwork under Hailey Thornhall.”
“No, it’s okay.” She uncaps the Snapple, taking another sip. Rosy tint has returned to her cheeks. “I really think this is a twenty-four-hour bug, Phebs. I’ll be fine.”
“In twenty-four hours, if you’re not fine, though—we’re going to Providence. I won’t take no for an answer. I will throw you in the car.”
She has a lopsided smile. Her teary, sentimental eyes on me. “I love you for that.”
I shove the marshmallow chicks back in the grocery bag. I’m not one hundred percent sure if they caused Hailey’s sudden nausea, but I’m claiming they’re the culprit. I toss the bag back onto the floor mats.
“So what was Oliver able to pull about the Wolfes?” I reroute back to our earlier topic.
“Their family tree. At a certain point, it’s…morbid. It makes sense why no one in town likes to recount it whenever I ask. And I think, for a lot of people, it’s been lost through the years. It’s not online. It’s not easy to trace back. Only those who were here at the time likely know what really happened.”
I scoot closer to her as she opens her photos on her phone. Oliver took a pic of a yellowed newspaper. The typed font is faded, but it’s clear what this is.
“An obituary,” I say.
“He found four.”
Four deaths? How many newspapers did he sift through in ten minutes? “How did he have enough time to find four?”
“Because they all died within the same year.”
Chills slip down my spine.
“Emilia Wolfe’s late husband died first,” Hailey says, zooming in on his obit. “Heart attack in his sleep.” She reads out, “ ‘William Wolfe leaves behind his devoted wife, Emilia, and three beloved children.’ ” Her eyes shift to me. “Two sons and a daughter.”
It dawns on me. “The daughter—she’s the one who was married to Varrick?” He was Emilia’s son-in-law, only a Wolfe by marriage.
“Yeah.” Hailey swipes the photos. “Daphne.” The newspaper printed a headshot of Emilia’s daughter. Big teased hair and bangs, puffy sleeves on slender shoulders—it looks like an eighties prom photo. “She was only twenty-two when she died. But she wasn’t the second death.”
Hailey finds the right pic, then tries to zoom in. The paper is crinkled, more faded and torn. “After William Wolfe passed away, his firstborn son was next. Christian Wolfe,” Hailey says. “He died in a car crash.”
I have so many questions. “Was he in an accident with another car? Did he run off the road and hit a tree?”
“Those details aren’t in here.” She squints at the pic. “I’ve tried to see whether he was married, but I couldn’t find those records either. Not for him or for his younger brother.” Lowering the phone, she swipes to another pic of an obituary. “The second-born son, Brent Wolfe, took his life a week later by jumping off the harbor bridge.”
My stomach clenches. “And then Daphne?”
“Two months after that, she overdosed, leaving just Varrick and Emilia, who’ve lived in Stonehaven together for over two decades…until last November, when she passed away from chronic kidney disease.”
“And no one thought it was strange that this entire family just died one after the other?”
She has another glazed look. “I don’t think the residents of Victoria wanted this town to be known for a tragedy of this scale. It’s easier to bury it under the rug than memorialize it. To pretend it never really happened.” She clicks out of the picture. “Some families are cursed.” Her gaze shifts to me. “But information shouldn’t be this hard to find. I know it was 1986, not everything was logged into computers. Most records were still being handwritten and archived in places like the Historical Society, but I just keep thinking…”
“Someone is purposefully hiding what happened?”
She nods. “It feels like a cover-up.”
My brain whirls a mile a minute.
Even more when Hailey adds, “I find the timing to be peculiar.” She holds her bent knees to her chest.
Sitting cross-legged, I face her more. “You said this all happened in 1986?”
Hailey nods faster, her eyes widening like saucers.
Nausea builds in me now. “Hails…”
“I know,” she whispers. “That was around twenty-six years ago.” Her throat bobs. “I’ve matched up the dates with Carter’s intel. It’s the exact same time that the godmothers would’ve been in Victoria. They were here, Phebs, when the entire Wolfe family died.”
It’s not just that. My eyes sting. “Rocky is turning twenty-six soon.” He was born in ’86.