Just then, she was tempted to tell Yoda to Kiss my ass, you must. But she didn’t have the energy.
Maybe after coffee.
Rolling onto her belly, she grabbed her phone, silenced his voice, and then threw the phone down and took up the study of the floorboards beneath her bed.
Three hours of sleep, she guessed.
Not much to go on, but she didn’t have to be social today. It was Wednesday and she didn’t have to be at Shakers. She’d fill the Internet orders for Bells N Blooms, and keep her cranky ass away from society.
It was probably a good thing she couldn’t really open up an actual store. Not that she wanted to. There was the old guy who’d gotten her hooked on flowers and lately he’d made noises about her coming in with him, maybe buying his place in a year or two so he could retire, but she wasn’t ready to do that.
She’d probably fail. Spectacularly, like she did with everything that really mattered.
Although sometimes, she thought about it. She’d fallen in love the first time she went in there. She could still remember it.
It had been with Mom.
A lance pierced her heart and she rolled onto her back, flinging her arm over her eyes.
It had been to pick up a corsage. Tate had had a dance at school.
The scent of flowers, the chaotic blooms, it had been like magic to the girl she’d been. So young. She’d already loved digging around in the dirt and the idea of working with flowers all day …
Les had even let her put together her own little bouquet, with some of the flowers he wouldn’t use, when he saw the amazement in her eyes as he finished up an order.
She’d been hooked.
School seemed like a waste of time to her, but she managed to learn more about flowers and plants than most adults knew. She knew how to plant them, the right way to cut them, which flowers worked well in an arrangement and which ones were likely to die sooner. She’d spent three years in foster care before the state finally let her go back home to her father and her foster parents had tried to gently nudge her into botanical studies.
But Chris didn’t have a head for school.
She’d done fine when Mom had been around to help her, but concentrating was hard, and the words and numbers jumbled together on the page. The harder she tried, the worse it got and others who tried to help only got frustrated when she couldn’t make them understand that the words didn’t look right to her.
It wasn’t until eleventh grade that she was diagnosed with dyslexia and by then, she was almost hopelessly behind. A couple of patient tutors and teachers were the only reason she was even able to graduate with her class, but it all left her with a burning disgust for school.
It hadn’t been so bad with Mom.
Nothing had been that bad with Mom.
Sighing, she rubbed her hand across her chest, but it did nothing to ease the ache there. She wanted to cry, needed that release so much, but she couldn’t find any way to free the tears trapped inside.
Guy’s face flashed before her and she squeezed her eyes shut.
No.
She wasn’t going to go to him.
Crying on his shoulder after what he’d done …
Setting her jaw, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, staring at the narrow strip of light filtering in through the window. The hollow ache remained, but she’d just have to find a way to live with it, deal with it.
Standing up, she strode out of her bedroom into the narrow, boxlike bathroom.
She was going to have to find a way to live with all of this, she supposed.
Theo Miller and his pathetic way of evading justice.
Guy and how he’d helped.
And the fact that her mother’s killer would never really answer for what he’d done.
She’d lived with the loss of her mom all this time.
She could live with this, right?
* * *
When she came out of her bathroom, the folded-up square of paper remained on her coffee table. Light shone down on it, catching her eye and refusing to let her look away.
She curled her lip and moved into the kitchen, her need for caffeine screaming through her.
And still, those folded sheets of paper remained back there.
Mocking her.
A confession.
What the hell?
What kind of special privileges did he get?
She glared at the coffeepot like it might be able to answer, might be able to make it all better, but it didn’t even magically make the coffee for her. Swearing, she got a pot brewing and dropped her head down onto the door of the cabinet in front of her, heaving out a sigh as she waited for the scent of the rich, life-giving brew to fill the air.
She nipped off a cup before the pot was finished and then turned around, staring across the wide open floor plan at the coffee table.
And the letter.
Confession.
Whatever.
She sipped the steaming cup of black and brooded.
As the caffeine started to sing through her veins and clear the fog from her blood, she closed her eyes.
Confession.
She’d wanted answers.
Fuck.
* * *
It took twenty minutes to cross the floor. Another five to work up the courage to reach for the letter.
But then she sat there, holding it like she was afraid she’d open it to find a Horcrux or something. Worse, Aragog … that creepy spider. Licking her lips, she started to unfold it and then jumped, a startled shriek escaping her when a fist slammed against her door.
“Open up, Tink.”
Her brother.
Heaving out a breath, she glared at the door while her heart hammered against her chest and, to her disbelief, tears stung her eyes. She swiped her fingers over her eyes, blinking them. She was almost crying. She couldn’t cry so easily as that.
What the hell.
She put the sheaf of folded paper down and rose, moving to the door on trembling legs.
Tate knocked again, ever impatient.
As he shouted through the door, she shouted back. “Hold your damn horses or I’ll kick you in the…”
She opened the door, blinked. Then stopped midsentence as she saw her dad.
Tate gave her a sharp-edged smile. “Kick me where?”
“In the teeth,” she finished sourly. She stood in the door, eyeing her family, all gathered in a neat little knot. Jensen had her cop clothes on, or what Chris had always considered her cop clothes, ever since she’d been promoted to detective: slacks, a plain blouse, a lightweight suit jacket in the summer. Under the jacket, she’d have a weapon. Chris had no doubt about that.
Tate had on a black T-shirt, battered jeans, and the boots were even more beat-up than hers. He had that bad-boy artistic look down to a T, save for the eyes.
The look in his eyes was …
Raw.
He reached up and she was so startled, she didn’t move away in time, couldn’t move as he cupped her face.
“You’ve been crying,” he whispered. His thumb rubbed along the skin under one eye. “You never cry, Chrissie.”
No. She hadn’t been crying. The tears wanted to come, burned her eyes, but they just couldn’t come out. Jerking her head away, she shook her head. “I cry,” she said softly. “I just … I cry, okay? I’m just weird about where I can do it.”
“And where is that?” He hauled her against him and she let him, breathing in the weird scent that she always associated with her big brother. He smelled of metal and fire—he worked with both, so that made sense, but he also smelled like coffee and mint toothpaste and the river. Sighing, she tucked her head against his chest. Once upon a time, she’d felt safe here. He’d held her, so tightly, that night, when Mom and Dad had fought, and then Mom had left, and they’d never seen her again. “Where do you cry, Chrissie? Under some magic tree in Neverland or something?”
Hearing the forced humor in his voice, she pinched him, jabbing h
im in his ribs just to make him jump. She smiled a little as he let her go. She wasn’t about to tell him that she could only cry when she was with Guy. That he was the only one who seemed to understand, the only one who understood the rage and the pain, the fear and the tears that always lived inside her. The rage was almost destructive and if she hadn’t had him to help her rein it in over the years, she didn’t know what might have happened to her.
“Yeah. I follow the first star to the right, butthead.” Then, because he seemed to need it, and because she knew she did, she hugged him and kissed his stubbled cheek. “Why are you all here?”
He studied her for a long moment and then looked back at their dad.
Doug moved forward.
“Guy came by to see me this morning. I … I thought we should all talk about what he had to say.” He looked down.
That was when she saw.
He held a folded-up sheaf of papers.
Just like the one she’d been ready to open.
The crack in her heart widened.
* * *
It was dark.
Nobody was home. I’d sent the boy out to find somebody to buy me some cigarettes, hopefully some beer, too.
I heard Butcher whining. I don’t know why, but I went to the door and yelled at him, said something like, “Shut the fuck up, you damn dog or I’ll see if you taste good.”
I wasn’t going to cook him. He was skinny as shit. The boy never did feed him and you could always see his bones sticking out.
But a few minutes later, I heard the chains rattling, heard him snarling.
I went out there again. I was so fucking tired of hearing that damn dog.
Then he was barking, growling. I grabbed my gun because I was about ready to put a bullet in his damn skull. But he was gone. Had broken his damn chain.
There was a hole in the fence and he’d gotten through it. Don’t know how.
I wasn’t going to go after him at all. You all gotta understand that. I didn’t have to. If I could have kept him from hurting her, I would have.
But he was already on her, and she was bleeding too bad. I know what it looks like when somebody is hurt bad. She was trying to crawl away. Couldn’t even cry, because he’d gotten to her throat. She’d hurt him somehow—you could see the blood on his face. Maybe he’d crushed her throat or something and that was when she smashed something against his face. I saw how tore up he was after. He was tearing up her leg while she was trying to crawl. I grabbed one of them old metal poles, hit that damn dog, once, twice. Then I hit him again, and again, before I kicked him in the gut. That was when I shot him. I used a two-liter bottle so nobody would hear it. I looked at her, but she was bleeding bad.
I couldn’t go to jail, but I knew everybody would blame me. She was always bitching about the dog. It wasn’t my fault, you know. He got off his chain. I didn’t let him off and I didn’t sic him after her. I tried to stop him. But it was too late.
I looked at her. Saw that she was already dying.
She was dead by the time I stuck her in the trunk. If she’d been alive, I woulda taken her to the ER. But she wasn’t. I had to take care of myself and my boy, too. His mama was never worth shit. Couldn’t work, couldn’t do nothing but sit around the house. I had to look after all of us and she was already gone. So I just put her in the trunk of her car. Put the car in the river—had to drive down a ways where I know the water runs deeper.
That’s it.
* * *
It was cold, simply stated.
There were a few more details, how he’d wrapped up the dog, how the rain that night washed away most of the blood. It had happened in the grassy patch out behind his home. Nichole’s tire had been flat and that was why she’d gotten out of the car to begin with.
But the words just buzzed past Chris’s ears. She stared at the table, numbness spreading through her.
When Doug stopped reading and placed the confession facedown on the table, she stood up and went to the window, staring outside.
After a minute, she laughed bitterly, the first sound any of them had made since Dad had stopped reading.
“His boy,” she said finally, turning to look at the rest of them. “Do you see the irony, how he couldn’t tell anybody what had happened because he had his boy to take care of? All he ever did was whale on Guy. But he couldn’t get in trouble over this.”
Tate sighed and dragged a hand through his hair, hooking it over the back of his neck as he stared at the floor. “Theo Miller has never been anything but a sack of shit. You didn’t really think he’d own up and apologize, did you?” Rising, he moved to stand by Chris, slipping an arm around her. “Only good thing to ever come from him was Guy and that was just pure luck on the part of fate. At least now we know.”
“Now we know,” she said, that hollow ache inside her spreading. “Do you know why we know?”
Gingerly, she moved away from her brother, cold inside, cold and sick and hurting.
“Because Guy made it happen.”
The words came from Jensen.
Chris stopped and looked at her sister, a sneer curling her lips.
“Yeah, he made it happen—”
“Stop,” Jensen said, her voice a cool, sharp slap in the air. “I can already see it, what you’re thinking. You think it was easy for him to go to that cocksucker, knowing how much he hates him? Knowing how he feels about you?”
Chris snorted. “Yeah, well. He didn’t let our friendship stop him from screwing up justice for our mom, did he?”
“Friendship.” Jensen laughed. It was a brittle, harsh echo in the room, echoing through Chris’s soul long after the sound faded from the air. “You think he just wants to be friends with you, Chrissie? You are so blind. That man is devoted to you. He knew what this was going to do to you. But he also knew one other thing, and I’ll stake my badge on it—he knew we needed answers and this was our best chance to get them.”
“Jensen…” Doug’s voice was soft, placating.
“Stop it, Dad.” Jensen shook her head and came around the couch without even looking away from Chris. “We’ve always tried to protect you, always tried to take it easy. Because you lost the most. You barely even had Mom—I know that is how it feels. You were sicker as a kid, you had a harder time in school. She was your rock, your anchor and losing her ripped you apart, even more than me and Tate. I know that. But are you so blind to what Guy did for us that you’ll risk losing him, too?”
“Guy didn’t…” The words caught in her throat. Chris blinked, her eyes stinging. Tears. Again. What the hell? Her throat knotted up and she turned away. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. I just know that Theo Miller won’t ever pay for what he did.”
“He can pay in hell,” Jensen said. “I hope his sorry ass suffers. I hope he’s sick as a dog and that no pain medicine will touch the pain he feels as he dies. Once he dies, he can suffer in hell. That’s good enough. He confessed. The case is closed. Everybody knows, and more important, we know. He won’t ever get out and he can’t hurt anybody—he hasn’t been able to hurt anybody, not Guy, nobody else’s mom, not for years. That is enough.”
Chris shoved her hands against her eyes, while deep inside, she started to tremble.
Hands closed around her wrists. She resisted, but Jensen was determined. “He took enough,” her sister said, in an odd echo of the words Chris had said to Guy only days before. “Hasn’t he taken enough? He took our mom. Don’t let him take Guy away from you.”
“Guy is just a friend,” she said, her lips going numb.
Her sister stared at her, her eyes wise and cynical. A smile curled her lips and she arched a brow. “Like hell.”
Chapter Nine
Just a friend.
She thought about that as she fitted the key into the lock of his apartment.
He hadn’t moved in here until a few months after she’d bought her house. He’d lived in a bigger place up on the hill. Bigger, blander¸ cheaper.
&nb
sp; This place had more character, she’d always thought, but the places here in town cost more. She’d used the money she’d gotten from her mother’s small life insurance policy to buy her place. It had been sitting in a fund for years. Her father had finally taken the steps to have her declared legally dead, a fact that had cut a deep, deep hole inside her. It had done the same to Tate and Jensen, although she understood why he’d done it.
They needed the closure, and he wanted them to have that final … gift. That was what he’d called it. They’d each taken out a life insurance policy so the kids would have something if their parents were taken. A final gift.
Tate had used his to pursue his art career. Jensen had used hers to go to college, chasing after her dream to become a cop. Because she didn’t want to see another kid waiting up late into the night, like they had.
Chris had held onto hers, until the day that old house across the street went up for sale, then she plunked a huge chunk of it down on the house, saving the rest of it. Sometimes she told herself she might try, one day, to buy her own florist shop, but she lied. She was too scared to reach for that kind of dream, because she didn’t trust in them.
Dreams were lies. Or so she’d always believed.
Part of her wanted to believe in more. So badly. But the only one she wanted to reach for more with … yeah. It was Guy. They were more than friends, but just like every other dream, she didn’t want to reach for him, didn’t want to believe in more.
As she settled down on the couch, she stared around her, looking at the few pictures Guy had scattered around.
They were in all of them. Chris with Guy, a few of Tate or Jensen, but most of them were Guy and Chris.
She reached for the closest one and held it up, rubbing her thumb along the frame. Tate must have taken it. It had been down at Guy’s cabin. She didn’t even remember anybody taking it, but she and Guy had been talking. Just talking. She was looking out over the river, but he’d been looking at her.
That look in his eyes …
Sighing, she tucked the picture against her chest and closed her eyes.
He didn’t look at her like that when she was watching him.
But it didn’t bother her.
Well, maybe it did. It bothered her because she hadn’t ever seen it. And she wanted to. Because it filled that empty ache. That ache that had lived inside her for the past few years, ever since they’d decided they should be friends.
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