The Family Lies

Everything I’ve been told about my family is a lie.

My cousin and my aunt died in a tragic accident on a family holiday.

I was fourteen when it happened.

One moment, we were planning a day at the mall. The next, they were dead in a car crash. A closed case. A past I was meant to forget.

Thirty years later. It starts with small things that don’t add up. A mug left on the kitchen counter. I didn’t put it there. A hand-delivered envelope containing an old-fashioned friendship bracelet. A bunch of fresh flowers left on my uncle’s grave.

I’m clearing out my mum’s attic when I find it. A diary. Belonging to the aunt who was killed in the crash . . .

My uncle was doing terrible things to the people who loved him. He wasn’t the charming, kind and generous man I remember at all. He was a monster