But now the house seemed so small, so worn.

Perhaps she should have visited before her grandfather died. No, she knew she should have. The last time she’d seen the man who’d taught her to whistle had been in the hospital when he’d had a stroke. Before that was at her grandmother’s funeral, and even then she hadn’t been able to come to the cabin because the hurt had been too raw, the upheaval in their family too great. Her grandfather had passed when she was on a speaking tour in Europe. She hadn’t known about his death until the morning of the funeral, and by then it was too late to fly back to the States. When she’d received the package from the attorney’s office with the key to the cabin, she’d finally shed the tears she’d held in for too long.

Chase stirred when the car came to a halt. She’d fallen asleep through much of the drive through the mountains, missing the best part. Olivia had always savored the winding roads and the gorgeous vistas, fields dotted with cows, but she’d let the actress sleep because she’d needed some time to work through saying the words “My sister overdosed.”

Because she’d rarely said them out loud. And she’d said them to a person she didn’t trust as far as she could throw her. And considering Olivia’s arm strength was likely subpar, that wouldn’t be far. Those who knew her well enough knew how Marley had died. Those who didn’t know her well didn’t have to know. None of their business. Olivia had legally changed her last name, shortening it to the first three letters after the debacle with her father, and nothing about her family or personal life was ever included in her bio. In some ways she’d erased that part of her life, but if someone looked carefully, they could see the marks and indentations her past had made on her life. Chase seemed pretty good at seeing those kinds of things.

Chase sat up and blinked, working a kink from her neck. “Oh wait. This is it? I thought you said it was a nice house?”

In the fading light, she could see that the cabin had a missing shutter, and the flower beds her granny had once meticulously tended had gone to seed. The grass had been freshly mowed thanks to a call to a lawn service, but the general sense of abandon hung over the place.

“Yep. Home sweet home for the next two or three weeks.”

“You’re joking, right? This is . . . a dump.” Chase rubbed her face as she blinked at the house. “No. We have to get a hotel or something. This looks like a place where we get hacked to death by the resident serial killer.”

Right as she spoke those words, someone tapped on the driver’s window.

They both screamed.

Olivia clutched a hand to her chest and turned to see someone standing outside the car holding an ax. She couldn’t make this stuff up.