by Raven Scott
“Doesn’t she have to have her own lawyer present?”
“Not unless she asks for one or charges are pressed. For now, I’ll be focused on your mother’s insurance claim. Even though her policy doesn’t cover arson, there are other routes we can explore for compensation.”
Nodding absently, I turned to my dad.
Landry’s gaze flickered over my shoulder. They shook hands, and Landry cleared his throat roughly before continuing, “So, I understand that your sister sustained some burns and managed to upset her arm and break her wrist at some point throughout all of this. I also spoke to the captain of the firehouse that tended your property, and it’s unsalvageable.”
“That’s not legal, is it?” My dad frowned.
Landry cocked a brow at him.
Now irritation flooded my chest. “Even if you’re our lawyer, you shouldn’t be able to get Sarah’s medical information.”
“... Right... She’s part of your family, was there when the fire started, and until charges are brought on her, that means I am obligated to know what she knows for the insurance claim. From what I know about her, Sarah may inflate her experiences, but I’ve been doing this a long time, sir. You may think she’s a great liar, but I assure you... she’s not good enough to get past me. It’s an abusive relationship. Emotional manipulation makes you think she’s powerful, but she’s not.” Landry cast my dad a stern look before turning to me.
I held my breath as anticipation slithered through my veins.
“May I speak with you a moment, David?”
“Uh— sure.” Glancing over my shoulder, my dad walked back to my mom to stop her from harassing the receptionist. Turning back to Landry, I couldn’t help but frown when Landry frowned. “What’s up?”
“Your sister is not in good shape.” Walking a few steps away so my dad couldn’t eavesdrop on us, Landry’s frown deepened as alarm widened my eyes. “I’ve already met with her, and if I didn’t know she was a world-class liar beforehand, I wouldn’t have suspected she was less than truthful. She truly believes her lies and they’re believable if you don’t know better. Trying to press charges may not work.”
“Then why’d you talk about charging her?”
Crossing his arms, Landry gestured to my mom and dad, as if it should’ve been obvious ‘why.’
Shaking my head, I raked my hair back and gulped down a frustrated sigh. “What did she say?”
“That she left water on the stove by accident and forgot about it—”
“Wait— wait. She called my mom and said she tried to light the fireplace.”
Landry nodded, not surprised at all.
I covered my mouth to hide my frown. “So, who was she lying to?”
“Doesn’t matter. The point is she’s a good liar. I didn’t want to say this in front of your father, but there’s a good chance that taking her to court for arson charges probably won’t pan out. It is an option, but it’s... a bad one. And it’s entirely up to your mother, who I’m sure isn’t going to bother. It’s not like your sister has anything. Prison would be an upgrade, and she’d probably not get much time, anyway.”
Arching a brow quizzically, I almost started pacing at the fury that raced through my veins.
“Your parents are divorced, you understand. I can’t do anything in regards to your father. He’s legally not part of your family unit. Considering how long it’s been, nothing he can give me will be valuable.”
“Yeah, yeah... I got that part. I just...” Waving my hand a little, I shook my head an inhaled in a desperate attempt to calm my buzzing nerves. “You know, you’re right. Doesn’t matter. Dad! You stay out in the hallway with Mom for a minute while I go in and talk to Sarah.”
“Yeah. I’m gonna get your mom some water. Hopefully, sober her up a little. We’ll be up in a few minutes.”
Landry and I headed for the elevator.
My mom complained loudly about going upstairs.
I sniffed harshly. I wished I were in bed with Vanessa, chillin’ out, watching a movie or something.
“I was there.” Punching the elevator button with his thumb, Landry cleared his throat roughly, as he switched his briefcase from one hand to another. His eyes narrowed on mine, piercing me.
I wiped my clammy palms on his pants nervously.
“With Samuel. I was there. What are your intentions with Vanessa?”
Alarms went off in my head at that stare— that same stare Reece had given me, ironically in an elevator.
“She’s a coldhearted bitch to anyone that wrongs her.”
“Hopefully, she would know better than to lump together an ex that didn’t pan out with her rapist. If we break up. Which I don’t think will happen easily.”
Amusement tinged his expression even as he gestured me into the elevator.
Letting the hope of my relationship with Vanessa even me out, I leaned against the reflective wall and clocked my head against the wall a little harder than I should’ve. “I think, once things calm down, things will get more serious. And before you say it— yes, I know, if I hurt her, someone that I met once that almost made me shit myself will come and rain hellfire down on me from on high Upstate New York.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t kill you. There’s plenty of other ways to ruin a person that doesn’t involve actually killing you.”
There’s the friendly threat. I wasn’t surprised or upset, because apparently, all these people understood was violence. Which I understood considering the guy they worked for scared the bejesus out of me.
“For now, let’s focus on your sister. So, you said she told your mother that she tried to start the fireplace. Do you know if she called on you on her cellphone?”
“I believe so, why?” The elevator started swinging up and I glanced over at Landry as he rolled his wrist almost in dismissal. “Your boss, bug her phone or something, somehow?”
“No, Vanessa did because of Sam. It wouldn’t be legally admissible in court, of course, but it can be used to show the insurance company and get them to wiggle on a settlement. There’s absolutely no way you’ll get anywhere near close to what the house is worth, but you could recoup the cost of the salvage and repairs for the houses on either side of you. Your homeowner’s doesn’t cover arson, but your mom’s not going to dispute that, just the cleanup. Going low should make it easier. She’s an old woman who just lost everything and is accepting of it. She just needs a little help.”
“Right. Should I record the conversation with Sarah?”
Landry nodded firmly.
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “My dad is more than capable of taking care of my mom, but I’ll record their conversation too, just in case. Vanessa offered me tomorrow off. I think I’m going to take it.”
“You should. I think your sister setting your house on fire to be a conniving bitch and get revenge because of a lie she convinced herself of, is one of those circumstances that excuses a day off during probationary.”
The door slid open, and I grunted when Landry clapped me on the shoulder hard. “Good luck.”
33
Vanessa
“Oh—” David stepped into my apartment looking exhausted and I stumbled back a little when he practically threw himself on me. Tingles swept under my long shirt and down my legs, as he buried his face in my neck as worry seeped into my bones. “What happened? What about your house? And your mom? Is she okay?”
“My mom’s fine. The house isn’t salvageable, but that’s okay. Mom and Sarah got into the ugliest fight ever.” He inhaled deeply, sucking the heat from my neck before pulling back. His eyes shimmered with emotion, as he wrapped his arm around my waist to saunter deeper into my apartment. “She said she’d be the mom she never wanted either of us to see, and man... did I not want to see that.”
My chest tightened at the way he said this and the look on his face. “You want some ice cream? I got some on the way home. Chocolate chip cookie dough and brownie fudge?” Against my side, David’s stiff gait soften
ed some as we reached the kitchen, and I smiled to myself. Breaking away to head for the freezer, I grabbed both cartons and two spoons, and he shot me a grateful look. “Landry called me. He likes you.”
“He’s a nice guy. Doesn’t sugarcoat anything.” His short answer came out distractedly as he popped the top of his quart. Grey, cloudy eyes met mine, and he pursed his lips thinly to exhale through flared nostrils. “I get why everyone you know seems to threaten me about treating you right, but don’t they trust your decision-making skills?”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Landry’s like my older brother, so I don’t think it has anything to do with my ability to make decisions.”
David’s brows creased deeply and he shrugged lightly as he stabbed his ice cream with his spoon.
Popping open my own carton, I leaned on the island to lick my lips heavily in anticipation. “I think they just take it upon themselves because they feel more important to me than they are.”
“I think you’re lying... I think they’re just as important to you as they think they are, you just don’t wanna admit it because it makes things harder.” David held up a hand when I opened my mouth—
I wanted to object or just because I was surprised, I didn’t even know.
He went on, “It’s fine. I’m not gonna judge you or anything and I think it’s nice that you have friends you can count on... he told me he was there when you killed Sam.”
“He was. Landry’s practice is technically in Washington, but he has a license here in New York, too. He’s been there for me almost every step of the way. I like that he doesn’t lord some ghost over me, too. Carlyle’s sister died and he loves to tell women they remind him of his sister. It’s suffocating.” We were just beating around the bush, I knew, but I didn’t want to push David into what really needed to be discussed.
His sister—and what happened between her and her mother.
Across the island, David sighed, leaning on his forearms as he scooped out some ice cream heavily. His expression roiled with upset.
Concern clung to my chest.
“It was hard... seeing my mom so upset.”
Gulping down the dense lump in my throat, I stuffed a ball of cookie dough into my mouth.
David tore his eyes off me. Frowning down into his carton, he blustered a sigh and rubbed his face roughly with his free hand. “Sarah has stolen so much over the course of the years. My mom’s rings from her marriage to my dad. Her expensive, heirloom jewelry has steadily been going missing since Sarah was a teenager. I remember... when I was a kid, we used to have this giant container, like a Whey Protein container or something, and filled it with change. When it got full, Mom would take me and Sarah and go cash it in, and she always threw a fit because she’d spend all of her fourth immediately and have nothing left. It was always about the same amount, so I could predict about how much I wanted to spend. I’d saved a lot of it over the years because I wanted a gaming system and I wanted to get it all at the same time without having to worry about not having enough money.” He sort of smirked a grim smile.
My heart throbbed with each beat as I could see the reflection of his memories in his eyes when they flickered to mine.
David shoveled a half-spoonful of chocolate ice cream into his mouth. “I never got it. Sarah found my stash. There was no way she’d just stumbled on it and my dad was so mad that he took everything in her room and gave it away. For a 13-year-old, Sarah was absolutely devastated. She gave back some of it, but she’d obviously spent most of it somehow. When my dad told her to fuck off, basically, she tried to run away. That’s when things started getting really bad for me. My mom was always the peacekeeper. She’d listen to me, but she never said anything directly to Sarah. And that’s okay. That’s just how my mom is. But watching my mom unload on Sarah, and Sarah realizing that my mom was done with her... I feel bad, but...it was...it was cathartic.” David’s grim smirk morphed into a more malicious one when his cheek twitched.
I held my chin up on my fist as I leaned in.
“Years and years of misery and self-doubt... where did my mom go wrong? What could my mom have done better? How would things be different if my mom had been different? It all came pouring out, and Sarah obviously never realized the kind of stress she’d put on our mom.”
The silence was deafening, a ringing in my ears, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak up when David paused. Taking another bite of my ice cream as he struggled to make sense of his frazzled mind, I rolled my lips between my teeth. The cold felt good against the roof of my mouth.
He tapped the side of his carton with his fingertips. “My mom didn’t fuck up. Sarah did. Over and over, and my mom finally acknowledged that Sarah is a lost cause. She told Sarah to her face that she wished she was never born, that she should’ve aborted, because apparently her and my dad talked about that. That she wished I was her only child and the heartache wasn’t worth it because Sarah didn’t have a single redeeming quality. My dad had to physically hold her back, and I think... it finally clicked in Sarah’s head that she’d lost the one good thing in her life and was never going to get it back,” he spoke quickly, almost breathlessly, then inhaled sharply with a hard sniffle. “My mom told Sarah she wasn’t even disappointed or mad because Sarah wasn’t worth her effort. Sarah tried— to her credit, she did try to get a word in, but she said something along the lines of ‘well, David’s no angel’ or something. I thought... that’s a terrible thing to say because it just opened up a new hurricane of insults.”
My mouth dried at this, even as I took another bite to calm my boiling blood.
David took a deep, stabilizing breath. When he glanced up at me, his eyes just oozed satisfaction and vindication, no regret or shame or hesitancy swirling in their depths. “Sarah literally burned herself for this stunt— like, you get that, right? She did it on purpose. There was no way it wasn’t intentional, and even the doctor said the pattern seemed to support that theory. She put something on fire on her face and chest to support her lie. The ER doctor was actually the same one that took care of her for her arm, which was nice because he remembered her. Like... how fucking impressionable does someone have to be for an ER doctor to remember them specifically?” Scoffing harshly, David stabbed his ice cream again to take out a huge chunk of brownie. “Since it was obvious that Sarah burned herself and the house, the doctor asked me to sign her in as an inpatient at the hospital. Which I did. Without hesitation. Sarah cried and begged and pleaded... and all I thought was... too bad, so sad... You had chances and now that well ran dry. I did it right in front of her, looked her in the eye, and I loved the way her face crumbled, realizing she was fucked for the rest of her life. As long as I thought she was a danger to herself or society, she would never leave the hospital. All of the bullshit, all the lies, all the horrible things she’d done are going to come back to bite her by proving that in over 30 years, she can’t be rehabilitated. And it undeniably felt good. It felt better than anything I ever experienced before, signing that form.”
“When your mom sobers up, do you think she’ll regret what she said?” Finally managing a question, I cocked my head at him.
David puffed out his lisp thoughtfully. “It wouldn’t matter. Landry and the doctor co-signed that my mom is no longer Sarah’s medical proxy. Her being intoxicated means technically my dad did it, but Mom specifically stated that she was afraid she’d take Sarah back when she sobered up, so she needed to not have the option. They gave her a BAC test, and she was below the legal limit at that point, so...” Trailing off, David shrugged.
I smiled tightly even while he frowned.
“Landry is right. Sarah is a good liar, but she can’t fool someone who’s been warned about her and is pretty perceptive. She can’t lie herself into the truth anymore. Every time she looks in the mirror, she’ll see her ruined face as a constant reminder that she finally looks the way she made everyone around her feel.”
“Isn’t it up to the psychiatrist if she stays in forever?”<
br />
David cast me a look I’d never seen pass through his eyes.
I arched a brow quizzically. “What? You can’t just stick a person in an asylum for no reason anymore, I don’t think.”
“... Landry pulled a string. Said Carlyle Santino said to jump if I said ‘jump’. He mentioned getting an independent consultation with a psychiatrist he’s worked with before.”
It’s probably Laura. Shaking my head a little, I focused on David as trouble creased his thick brows, and tumultuous emotions roiled in his eyes.
“I don’t feel bad. I thought I’d feel worse at least, for knowing that my mom would be upset about essentially losing her child... but I don’t. I just feel relief. We can finally get on with our lives, without having to worry about Sarah crashing in and ruining things again.”
“Sometimes, it shouldn’t feel bad. The notion that what we do affects others applies to everyone else, too.” Reaching across the table to hold his hand, I squeezed reassuringly. “It means feeling vindictive or that Sarah deserves the horrible things currently happening to her isn’t just because you don’t like her, but because she earned it.”
David smiled as relief slumped his shoulders a little. “Is this how you felt with Sam? Like you had nothing to feel bad about because he earned it, but that in itself made you feel bad?”
Pursing my lips thinly, I shook my head mutely and set my spoon down. “Not anymore. It’s been a long time. I do remember feeling that way about my parents, though. Our image is different in everyone’s mind that we meet. To a coffee shop worker, we’re a customer. To our mothers, we’re their children. To a homeless person, maybe we’re an asshole that just walks by without acknowledging their panhandling. To me, Sam was the man that irrevocably changed the direction my life was heading in, and... in a messed-up way, it was for the better. To you, your sister was a demon that tortured you, loomed over your life, and now that she’s gone, you’ll notice it... the trauma we experience from an early age, we never really know how far deep it goes until that person is gone.”