by Max Monroe
“And for as messed up as I was before you, I don’t think I was entirely wrong.” God, how could I say this in a way that made sense?
“I don’t think you say goodbye. I think you try to understand that, physically, she’s gone. But her spirit, the parts of her you love, they never will be. She’ll guide you. She’ll teach you. Just like you found with Grace, someone else will find a lesson in Camilla and learn from her.”
“I just don’t know how to handle today. All those people…”
Today, she’d bury her sister.
Today, she’d say goodbye.
Today wasn’t a day at all. It was a real-life version of hell.
In fact, I’d been dreading this day since I’d attended Dane Marx’s funeral in Cold. That one had been hard. He had been a good guy. Full of life. Honest. Kind. And he hadn’t deserved his fate. He hadn’t deserved to be snuffed out of this world at the hands of an unhinged psychopath.
And now, he’d left behind a distraught mother and father and sister trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces.
Fuck, what a mess. What a fucking mess.
They say the majority of police officers never have to shoot their guns during their careers. Much less have to kill anyone.
Yet I’d somehow managed to have blood on my hands twice.
Both of my victims deserved their fate, that much I knew.
But their victims? They were innocent. They were tragically removed from this life for no other reason but evil, deranged motivations.
Visions of Dane and Camilla threatened to flash behind my eyes, but I pushed them away. I refused to go there. I refused to wallow in the terrifying memories.
Ivy needed my strength.
I pulled her face from my chest and moved her head out from under the water. I wanted her to hear me, to see me—to know I meant the words with every fiber of my being.
“You do whatever you need. Anything, Ivy. And you do it knowing I’ll be there, right next to you, every single step of the way.”
Sweet tulips and fragrant lilies, the smells of the funeral home closed in on me like a compactor. Everything felt tight—stifling—and the eerie, low hum of people just barely talking felt so wrong.
Camilla was young and full of life, and the fact that she was gone couldn’t have been more obvious in this dusty pink room if they’d tried.
The carpet was well-worn and the subfloor squeaky, and pictures littered the antique tables around the perimeter of a room filled with ornate chairs. It was fancy and top-of-the-line, but not one feature of the converted old house reminded me of my sister.
“Oh, Ivy,” my mother’s friend Lorraine cooed in my ear as she wrapped her arms around me. “Your twin. I can’t even imagine how alone you feel.”
The words, meant to comfort, I was sure, did nothing but incite my anger.
My looks were a curse, and being a twin to Camilla was the sole reason she was gone.
It should have been me.
I swallowed past the thick emotion in my throat and blinked away the tears that never seemed to go away. Lorraine kept talking, but I couldn’t hear a fucking word she was saying. She seemed intent on making this hug last far longer than it needed to, and her old-lady perfume threatened to choke the oxygen out of my tight lungs.
Levi stepped forward from beside me, pulling the frail woman from our embrace and capturing her attention, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
He’d been doing this since the moment we’d arrived at the visitation service this morning—any time my emotions elevated past the baseline agony I knew as my new normal, he stepped in.
He smiled and fawned. He hugged and small-talked. He did everything short of transplanting his body in the place of mine to take the attention off of me—even if it went against everything that came naturally to him.
He wasn’t chatty and he wasn’t social and he didn’t like to be touched by hundreds of strangers at a time, but he dove headfirst into it today—for me.
Unfortunately, the line was never-ending and the comments all the same. As soon as one well-meaning busybody stepped aside, another took his or her place. Not to mention, the low keen of my mother’s wail hadn’t stopped since the start of the receiving line of friends and family. It was suffering and agonized, and I felt bloody and beaten from the intensity of it. I didn’t know how the fuck I was going to survive it through the end of the funeral and repast.
And the words that everyone kept saying to me—words I knew were said with love and care—grated. They were ridiculous and trite, and the fact that anyone thought there was even a possibility of being okay at this point was preposterous.
My sister had just died, for fuck’s sake. God.
I had to take a gulp of air to stave off tears as I remembered the moment Levi told me she’d been pretending to be me. That she’d died saving me.
We’d just arrived in our hotel room in LA, and I hadn’t stopped asking questions about how this could have happened—why it would have happened to Camilla—since our plane had taken off in Montana. Levi’s face had been nearly lifeless as he’d clasped me gently at the tops of my arms and settled me into the cushion of the couch without explanation.
And there, down on his knees, with his heart in his throat, he’d explained it all to me.
He’d started off by letting me know he hadn’t been hiding the details of Camilla’s death from me, but he had been waiting for the right time to explain it all. Which, when it came to the tragic murder of my sister, there was no right time. It was all horrible fucking timing.
But he’d told me nonetheless.
How it had happened. What had been going on when he’d arrived on scene. My sister pretending to be me to protect me from Boyce. His struggle to get a shot as Boyce had taken her from me. How Boyce had thought he was taking my life.
How was I supposed to get over the guilt of that? The reality that if I’d just been awake, Camilla would still be alive?
“You okay?” Levi whispered, pressing the side of his body up against the side of mine. The physical contact felt good, the warmth of his muscular arm seeping into the cold numbness of my own.
“No,” I said simply, clenching my teeth to fight the sting of tears as they pooled behind my nose.
I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t coping. And I wasn’t ready to let Camilla go.
Levi’s small smile was the very last thing I expected. A villain among the frowns and tears of everyone else.
Granted, it was far removed from happy, reeking more of relief than anything else, but I couldn’t reason what place it had here.
I watched the blue swirl in the circular midnight pools of his eyes and basked in the strength of his fingers intertwined with mine. Even when the someone I was rallying to face was him, I flourished under his support.
“Are you relieved that I’m struggling?” I asked through gritted teeth. My volume was low, but Levi took our privacy a step further by leaning down to my ear to answer.
“No, baby,” he assured. “I’m relieved you’re able to admit it. That means I might be able to help. That your family might be able to help.”
I moved back just slightly, enough to study his eyes, but the moment didn’t last.
My mother’s gulping sob cut through my chest and pulled me around to face the front.
Just to the left of my father, she was struggling to stand at the head of our line, her previously crisp black dress wrinkled at the edges from all of the physical contact.
Mary Murphy was in her arms, swallowed by a hug full of grief, and a ratty tissue poked out from my mom’s hand at Mary’s back. Mary was a stranger to my mother, but she was no stranger to my mother’s pain, and the sight of her made me go weak at the knees.
No obligation, no pressure, she and Sam had made the trip from Cold all the way to LA, just to be here for us in our time of need. If I’d ever had any doubts at all that the Murphys were the kind of family you dreamed of holding a place in, they were completely gone now.
Levi noticed
my stare, followed the line of it to Mary and Sam, and reached out to squeeze my hand. Despite my short temper with him and everyone else, I took it in my own and clutched it so hard they might permanently join.
He nodded at me when I looked to him, a confirmation that the Murphys traveled here just for this. That I was important enough to them to show up, in my most desperate time of need.
As the familiarity of what she and Sam and Levi had been through over six long years ago pierced my chest, my hand tightened even further in its clutch of Levi’s. He squeezed back and leaned down to kiss my cheek before leaving me to my moment.
I watched raptly as Mary took my mom’s weight and whispered kind words into her ear. For the first time in the service, I found myself eager for the line to move faster—eager to talk and hug and thank someone for coming.
She knew exactly what my family was feeling. Grace was her daughter, and one minute her baby girl, her child, had been on this earth, vibrant and full of life, and the next she’d been gone.
Mary knew. She knew with an intensity that comforted and soothed. That gave reason to my feelings and my pains and put a face to where I might be able to live one day.
Settled in my grief. In no way over it, but certainly to a place where coping was possible.
I listened intently as Mary finally moved on from my mom and introduced herself to my dad. He took her hand in a firm shake, throat tight, but he didn’t pull her into the bone-crushing hug my mother had.
My dad, Dave, was a totally trustworthy guy. Dependable. Funny in the dad-joke kind of way and strong. He was always there for his girls.
But in the face of losing one, he was nothing more than taciturn. Short nods. Small words. He couldn’t bear the thought of giving any of these people any more of himself than a polite greeting.
I didn’t blame him at all.
Where my mom found comfort in crying into nearly anyone’s arms, my dad and I held ourselves removed.
But as Mary stepped over to me and pulled me gently into her arms, I went without reservation. Her hug was warm and solid, and the sweet smell of her wrapped around me only served as a reminder of just how unfair the world was as a whole.
Deep breath expelled, I couldn’t stop the sob that followed as I opened my throat and leaned into the embrace.
“You’re doing so well, Ivy,” Mary murmured into my hair. I nodded into her neck, flourishing under the praise. I didn’t know why it helped so much, but somehow, thinking she was satisfied with the way I was handling everything made me feel validated. If she thought I was starting where I needed to, maybe I’d be able to get to where she was.
“I…” I choked on saliva and started over. “I just can’t believe this happened.”
Mary stroked my hair and hummed softly before responding. “That never goes away. The why, the how, it’ll plague you forever. But by God, the rest of it will get easier. Give yourself time. Give yourself grief. Give yourself whatever it is you need, and lean on those around you.”
I nodded as she pulled back from the hug and tipped her head toward Levi. “Really,” she emphasized. “He’s tall and strong, and he can handle your load. Give it to him.”
“Okay,” I whispered softly.
A gasp sounded from behind me as Sam shoved Mary out of the way and embraced me heartily. The other attendees were taken by surprise by his frankness, obviously, but I was relieved. In fact, a tiny laugh formed in my throat and almost made it to the surface.
A miracle.
“Sam,” I murmured affectionately as he squeezed me tightly. “Thank you so much for coming.”
“When you get to be my age, funerals are about all you get to do outside of the house.”
I shook my head at his obvious joke and placed a small kiss on his cheek. The warmth of his smile took root inside my chest and bloomed as he basked in it.
“Thanks anyway,” I told him again. “I’m so glad you’re here. Please come eat with us after. To the repast. Levi can give you directions.”
He nodded once and slapped Levi and me both on the arms. “Wouldn’t miss it, doll. Like it or not, you’re family now. To us. To Cold. And family looks out for family.”
Truer words had never been spoken. My sister had certainly looked out for me.
With a mind to Ivy’s quickly draining energy, I scooped another helping of pasta alla vodka onto her plate and then set the serving spoon back in its place.
She was turned, listening to her aunt as she talked to her mother, a blank, hollow kind of torture coloring her face gray.
It’d been a horrible day, to put it mildly. Eager to get everything over with and limit the amount of media attention, Helen, Dave, and Ivy had chosen to do everything—visitation, funeral, and repast—on the same day. I’d hired security for us, guys who used to work on the police force before moving into the private sector, and they’d done a great job of making sure I didn’t have to worry about Ivy’s safety.
I glanced their way, and the man in charge, Baylor, gave me a nod while his partner, Hampton, surveyed the room.
The decision to do it all in one day had been a good one, it seemed, for media. Word of the service hadn’t gone public until a couple of hours in, and by then, the area had been fully secured and locked down.
But that didn’t mean it didn’t come with drawbacks. Ivy had been on her feet for the better part of eight hours, and emotionally, she was drained.
After a week of waiting to lay Cami to rest, and the reality of doing it, she was barely hanging on at all.
Carefully, I brushed the hair from her shoulder and leaned forward to put my lips to her ear.
“Eat, baby. Carbs are good.”
She startled at the sound of my voice but didn’t turn.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I know,” I conceded. My stomach knew the twisted, vacant illusion grief created. It said we didn’t need sustenance when we did; that we didn’t need the energy to go on. But now, on the other side of the cliff looking back, I knew better. The time would come when she’d need the fuel, when the energy would be welcome. And I wanted her to be ready. “Eat anyway.”
For the rest of today, for tonight—she would need it. I knew she wouldn’t be ready to rest until the very last tear had been shed, the last hug had been given, the memories had been basked in with her mother, and she’d already been going for so long.
Her glare was noticeable as she turned, but I took the fork in her hand as victory.
I needed her to eat. I didn’t need her to like me while she was doing it.
When I turned away from her and back to my plate, leaving nothing but an arm at the back of her chair to keep closeness established, I found her dad watching me. His eyes were keen, shiny with emotion, and, most important of all, approving.
And I didn’t need a decoder ring to know why.
The man’s heart was heavy and riddled with holes, and the stress of looking out for both his wife and daughter was almost unmanageable.
I was willing to help carry the burden of his family. I was willing to wade through the misplaced guilt of survivors left behind. And he was relieved to have the assistance.
Sam caught my attention from the bar across the room with a wave of a hand, so I leaned to the side and placed a kiss to the apple of Ivy’s cheek. She flinched at the contact.
“I’ll be right back,” I told her. “Just going to get a refill and say hello to Sam. Can I get you anything?”
She shook her head but said nothing, likely still mad about the food. I kissed her again and ignored the glare before rising out of my chair and stepping the two feet over to her dad. “Can I get you anything while I’m up, Dave?” I asked.
He startled at my question and looked up to find my eyes. Deep hazel and searching, his own were struggling to place me, even having made direct mental contact with me moments before. The grief-stricken mind was a bottomless ocean of confusion. Facts flitted and details roamed, and nailing down any one feeling was an impossibil
ity—blocked off in an exercise in self-preservation.
“What’s that?” he asked in a fog.
I smiled kindly and repeated the question. “I’m headed over to the bar. Can I get you or Helen anything?”
“Uh, no,” he stuttered. “I think I’ll head that way myself in a minute. Could use the breather.”
I nodded my acquiescence and moved away, happy to give him the moment he needed to gather himself. I hated having people in my face, especially people I didn’t know well, when I was doing my best to process unwelcome emotion.
I glanced to Baylor and jerked my head, assuring he would keep an extra eye on Ivy while I was talking to Sam.
Baylor was an expert in his field, and a guy cut from my own professional cloth. He nodded back and signaled to Hampton that he’d be stepping farther into the room.
I exhaled a breath of relief and moved swiftly to the bar.
Sam was downing a glass of whiskey like a man half his age.
I smiled and nudged him with my shoulder as I sidled up next to him. “Needed a drink, huh?”
Sam guffawed. “Just about always anymore, Lee. But today, yeah. Especially today.”
Emotions raged on the surface as he relived the death of his own granddaughter. I could see it written in the tense line of his shoulders and the hard line of his jaw.
“Stirring up some shitty stuff,” I murmured, nodding to the bartender to get me a glass just like it.
Unlike the times of the past, I wouldn’t be overindulging today. I just wanted a little sip to take the very edge off.
Sam nodded and licked his lips, admitting, “It’s hard. Doesn’t ever stop being hard, and I know you know exactly what I mean. And poor Ivy. I feel for that girl like she’s one of my own. I wish I could say I can’t imagine the guilt she’s carryin’ around, but you and I both know we’ve seen it before.”
Me. He was talking about me, and the guilt I’d carried for years after Grace’s death. My throat tightened and my palms flexed, and all I could do was nod.
“How you holdin’ up?”
I shrugged. Who the fuck cared how I felt? To me, all that mattered was Ivy.