The Last Girl (Sand & Fog #7)

by Susan Ward

  I wouldn’t know and never will.

  “If you say so.” I finished my juice and set down my glass as I tightly reined in my emotions. “I need to cut this short this morning, Mom. Krystal’s picking me up soon and I still gotta shower, dress, and eat.”

  She set her palm on my face and kissed my cheek. “Have a good visit with Krystal.”

  I managed to nod in answer and then quickly headed toward my bedroom. Visit? Dad and Mom’s fight must not have lasted long and they made up last night. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be firmly back in happy-delusion land.

  “NO, YOU ARE NOT DRIVING,” Krystal groused, trying to snatch the keys from my hand and behaving more like a teenage girl than a mother of three.

  I had to twist my body to keep her from taking them. For some reason we always clashed when we were together, though I wasn’t sure why. My sister Kaley said it was because I was Dad’s favorite and Krystal rebelled against anything she considered unfair.

  I didn’t note any favoritism or enough of a difference between the two of us for there to be any with our dad. We were nine years apart and looked a lot alike. Long, dark curly hair from Dad, ginormous blue eyes from Mom, delicate facial features from who knew. The difference between us was minor: I was tall and vivacious, and she was short—okay, shorter at five feet six, I amended in my head because she didn’t like being called short—and serious.

  “I’m not rolling down the streets of LA in the mommy-mobile. No way.” I sprinted ahead of her to my Tesla.

  Krystal set her elbows on the roof of my car and glared at me. “Don’t cause trouble with Mom first thing. I’m supposed to drive. There and directly back.”

  Directly back? Was Mom kidding? Sorry, Krystal, not today.

  “My appointment, my rules.” I hit the fob to unlock the car. “You don’t have to get in. I can go without you.”

  She tossed me a fast, disgruntled look. “Not happening, Khloe.”

  “The mommy-mobile isn’t happening either. It’s a beautiful day and I plan to drive around with the top down. I’m single again.”

  Krystal’s eyes flashed. “You broke up with Zane?”

  I made a dramatic pout. “He broke up with me.”

  “Jerk,” she hissed fiercely. “Did he say why?”

  “You know why, Krystal. He invested two years in me. I guess that’s something. It’s not surprising he decided to move on.”

  An air of sympathy softened her features and her expression suggested enough said. “Fucker,” she snapped, and I knew that’d be it from Krystal. She didn’t like to go into the weeds of touchy subjects.

  “Are we going to the lab first?” she asked.

  “No. Cody collected my blood on the plane yesterday and messengered it to the lab.”

  “Good. It makes my stomach turn watching them fill all those vials.”

  “Jeez, you’re so squeamish about it I can’t figure out how you survived having more than one kid.”

  “Sorry.” She glanced away quickly, then frowned before leaning as much as she could across the car toward me. Her voice this time was an intense whisper. “What’s up with that?”

  I frowned.

  She tilted her head in the direction of Damon’s car and the security detail hovering in the driveway should he need them. “Who’s at the house Mom doesn’t want me to see? She practically snatched the girls from me and pushed us out of the front door.”

  I shook my head with my eyes widened as if to say Mom’s being ridiculous and dropped down heavily onto my seat. “A friend of Dad’s. No one special.”

  “Then why all the secrecy?” Krystal sank into the car beside me. “Mom is so obvious when she’s trying to keep a secret. Spill, Khloe. Now.”

  “You have to ask Dad.”

  She frowned. “Don’t play that game. It isn’t going to work. You have to be with me most of the day and I’ll worm it out of you eventually. You know that.”

  Yes, she would. Krystal was always like a dog with a bone if she felt someone was keeping something from her. I could either endure hours of her relentless probing or tell her. “Damon Saxe is staying at our house on holiday.”

  Her inky brows crinkled. “Damon Saxe?”

  “Duh, Krystal. Being a mother has seriously reduced your memory and awareness of anything of the outside world. Prince Damon Charles Arthur Deverell Saxe, Duke of Windmere.”

  Her mouth made a wide O. She shot a glance at the house then swiveled back to me. “The naughty prince is in our house?”

  “Yep.” I tapped the ignition and pulled from parking turnout onto the driveway.

  Krystal slouched, petulant. “Why are you allowed to meet him and I’m not? Why are you always the special one?”

  “Everything is not a conspiracy, Krystal. It wasn’t you Mom was pushing out the front door; it was me. She’s been trolling my medical reports again and is in a panic over one of the tests. The faster I go the faster she finds out I’m OK. You know the drill.”

  “Oh.” That seemed to please and satisfy her. Then her eyes began to shimmer. “But that’s convenient for you, now isn’t it?”

  “I assure you, Krystal, it’s not convenient for me in any way.”

  “Not convenient? Aha, Khloe’s thinking it’s very convenient.”

  “If that makes sense, you’ve lost me.”

  “You’re trapped at home for six months. You’ve got Mom on patrol 24/7 ruining your party and fun. You broke up with Zane. And there’s a very sexy playboy—exactly the type you run around with in Europe—sleeping somewhere in our house close to you. Things couldn’t have been arranged more perfectly if it’d been your idea. I’m not completely convinced you don’t have a hand in it.”

  I could feel her gaze on me, challenging, and I met it fast because I had to. “I didn’t and it’s not.”

  “You could, and you might.”

  “Never.”

  “Then why is your face flushed?”

  Damn it. For a fleeting second, I remembered that it was my doing in a roundabout way that Damon was at the house. That, and how we were on the cliffs at sunset.

  “Never,” Krystal taunted and laughed. “You’re so obvious sometimes it’s painful to witness. You and Mom are so alike.”

  I shifted the car with a jerk, crossing the double yellow line on PCH to speed past an Audi going too slow in front of me.

  “Jeez Louise, Khloe. Don’t drive like that. You’re not in Europe. Do you have to scare me every time I let you drive somewhere? Slow down. This isn’t funny.”

  I felt a little bad because it wasn’t nice to poke the scaredy-cat in Krystal, but it made her stop talking about Damon.

  AT THE CLINIC, AFTER signing in, there wasn’t even time to take a seat in the empty waiting area because a nurse instantly appeared to take me for my scan.

  “Khloe?” she called.

  I looked at Krystal. “I won’t be long.”

  “I’ll be here waiting.”

  KRYSTAL’S LEG BUMPED into mine as it jiggled beside me. “How long until you see the doctor?”

  “Shouldn’t be long.”

  She nodded. “Good.”

  My sister’s delicate face was taut, and the anxiety building in me since we got here was in her as well.

  “If it’s good, are you staying home the whole six months this year?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t know. I don’t like to make plans until this is out of the way.”

  Krystal’s blue eyes clouded over. “It’ll be fine. It has to be. You look really good, Khloe.”

  “I feel good. It’ll be fine.”

  Krystal made a firm nod and the door opened.

  “Come in, Khloe,” the nurse said.

  “Are you coming in with me?” I asked my sister.

  “I will if you want.”

  I nodded. “After my exam, the doctor’s going to go over my lab report and scan with me.”

  Krystal grabbed her purse from the chair and we both followed the nurse to the room. This clinic
was a far cry from the standard medical center. It catered to the wealthy, there was never a wait for anything, and even the exam rooms were sun-filled and cozy, the furniture and décor was inviting, and the gowns were a soft Egyptian cotton instead of paper. But that didn’t change what it was or where being in the room might take me.

  “The doctor will be right with you.”

  Once alone, dressed in my gown, and sitting on the edge of the table, Krystal settled close beside me, reached for my hand, and held it fiercely. In here, what we didn’t openly talk about as a family was very real.

  “YOU CAN SIT UP NOW, Khloe.” The back of the table was raised so I no longer was lying, and Krystal was alertly studying me again. It was amazing how she could almost disappear while I was being poked and prodded, her eyes never landing on me once until she heard the quiet buzz of the motor from the table.

  The doctor went to his chair and Krystal rushed back to sit beside me. She brushed my curls from my face and smiled while the doctor studied the monitors and reports.

  “There’s no improvement, dear, but the good news is there’s no progression. It’s not what we hoped when putting you on the immunotherapy five years ago, but as I explained when we started, monoclonal antibodies have not been used to treat your specific type of cardiac sarcoma. This is the first known trial for this treatment. Its value is unknown—”

  Krystal’s fingers became painfully tight around mine.

  “To achieve better results, it may take longer. The good news is there’s been no progression in a year and there are no secondary concerns caused by the therapy present in your labs. You qualify to continue in the trial. I recommend another round of treatment starting immediately and a follow-up check in six months.”

  “All right, Dr. Hern. My dad trusts you and so do I.”

  With the wrap of his arm, he gave me a quick hug. “It’s not bad news, Khloe. It’s good news. It’s better than where we were before the drug trial. The chemotherapy was much harder on your body and the result no different.”

  Nodding, I fought back emotion and waited for him to leave so I could dress.

  “The nurse will be here for you shortly,” Dr. Hern said and left the room.

  Krystal scooped me up in her arms. “It’s not what we want, but it’s good, Khloe.”

  “Yes. I was worried I wouldn’t qualify to stay on the trial.”

  She brushed my cheeks, but they were dry. The tears were in me; they just couldn’t find a way out. Crying wouldn’t change anything anyway. My prognosis eight years ago was terminal so, really, each additional year I got was a miracle. The tumor in my heart wasn’t somewhere they could remove it from and my cardiac sarcoma had metastasized into my bones before the doctors diagnosed. It nixed the possibility of getting a heart transplant.

  Years of chemotherapy and a dozen other kinds of treatments that had made me violently ill had brought me here to Dr. Hern’s clinic where at least I wasn’t getting worse and I felt OK most days.

  I’d only just finished dressing when the exam room door opened and the nurse returned. “Follow me, Khloe.”

  “HOW DO YOU FEEL? DO you want me to drive?” Krystal asked two hours later as we left the clinic.

  “No. I’m good. The immunotherapy doesn’t make me drowsy the way having the chemo did.”

  Krystal checked her phone. “It’s late. We should have called Mom after Dr. Hern. She’s gotta be crawling the walls by now.”

  “I already texted her, Krystal. I told her I was good.”

  “Why did you lie to her?”

  “I didn’t. I am good. And it’s better to give her the full details at the house than by phone. I didn’t want her to worry and she would have because of how long we were gone, and you know it.”

  WE WERE ALMOST TO THE house when I decided to ask her. “Krystal, I’m old enough to know the family secret. No bullshit this time. Who’s Molly?”

  “What?” She’d been staring out the window and hopped around in her seat, facing me, obstinate posture in place. “Why do you always ask me that?”

  “Because you won’t answer.”

  “That should tell you not to ask again.”

  But it didn’t. Instead, I told her about the night I’d found Mom and Dad in the kitchen after the doctor had diagnosed me, and that I continued to have dreams about it. I hadn’t told her that before—I didn’t know why, and I didn’t know why I was doing it finally. Christ, I didn’t even know why Molly seemed important to me.

  We were parked in the driveway before Krystal stopped fidgeting and the tight line of her mouth faded. “You have to promise to have a filter on this, Khloe.”

  “Why do you all accuse me of not having a filter?”

  “Ah, because you don’t. But this one you don’t bring up with the folks. They don’t think any of us kids know. But Kaley always finds out everything. Dad had a little girl before Mom. Her name was Molly and she died. It’s why Dad was so afraid of being a father and all the junk happened between him and Mom. Don’t ask me anything else about her, because that’s all Kaley told me.”

  I wasn’t about to ask more. What I had learned was enough to handle and I wished Krystal had never answered.

  Chapter Twenty

  KRYSTAL REPEATEDLY glanced right and left then back again in hopes of getting a glimpse of Damon as we made our way through the house toward the kitchen, but there wasn’t anyone about to spot.

  She crinkled her nose as she dropped her purse on the breakfast bar. “Why is it so quiet? I expected Mom to be on us the second we got home.”

  “Not with your girls here, Krystal. Never. Mom would consider that too real, too alarming in front of them.” After grabbing two wineglasses from the cabinet, I peeked over my shoulder at her. “Are my results chardonnay or is it scotch news for Mom?”

  “Chardonnay. Even if it wasn’t, bringing Mom scotch would alarm her before you explained the result.” Krystal eased herself down on a barstool. “You don’t have to worry so much over Mom every time it’s results day. She’s stronger than you think she is. Stronger than Dad. It’s Dad you have to be gentle with and never are. He gets hit harder with things than Mom does.”

  That brought to mind Krystal’s trials and tribulations, and I could tell from how her gaze was hooded that she was thinking about that as well. How Dad had sat with her night and day in the hospital through her recovery after she’d been beaten and raped. Even Mom couldn’t pry him away. I was twelve and it had been the first time I’d heard my father cry, as if his heart were broken by Krystal’s suffering.

  That reminded me of Molly—so much about my parents during the times of adversity now made sense—and I suspected Krystal was right. Another thing I’d missed trying not to bring more pain to my parents because of the lousy cards life had given me.

  I went to the wine fridge, retrieved a nice Napa white, and filled the glasses halfway. “You’re right. It’s weird how quiet it is. Where do you think everyone is?”

  “Dad? Who knows?” Krystal turned to look out onto the patio. “Mom’s not in the pool with the kids. They must be upstairs in the theater.”

  That sounded right to me. I carefully took hold of the glasses and nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you come with me and take the girls home? We shouldn’t make Mom wait longer.”

  “It doesn’t seem right to leave without saying hi to Dad,” Krystal grumbled, but I knew it was her obsession to meet Damon instead.

  “Check the studio on your way out. I’m sure Damon’s there with Dad. It’s where I found them yesterday.”

  She made an annoyed face for my jibe about Damon, pushed off her stool, and followed me. Instead of the stairs, we headed toward the elevator to take us to the second floor.

  I hated the elevators Dad had built all through the house. I could walk forever on a level surface, but I couldn’t climb stairs without getting winded. I could make love all night but I couldn’t carry a baby, which added to falling in love and marriage being an unfair thing for
me to do. I could live my life pretty much like a normal twenty-two-year-old, but I couldn’t count on it staying that way. For the past eight years, I’d lived as if there’d only be today and no tomorrow for me.

  It was the odd episodes of shortness of breath when I was fourteen that had first warned there was something wrong with me and that turned my world into an endless series of doctors and tests before Dad took me to Dr. Hern and he found the tumor in my ticker.

  The elevator doors opened. “Can you hit the button for the second floor for me?”

  Krystal tapped it, stepped back, and the doors closed.

  “I wonder if Mom’s going to have one of her homecoming family dinners for you with the prince here,” Krystal pondered.

  I hadn’t contemplated that before, but it wasn’t an idea that appealed to me. “Probably. You know how Mom is.”

  “Jeez, you make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “No, I don’t. I was agreeing with you.”

  She frowned at me and proceeded out of the elevator. She got to our family theater first and opened the door for me. Out flooded the soundtrack of an animated feature. Mom was passing the hours waiting on me with a movie afternoon with her granddaughters.

  I spied Mom with Krystal’s youngest daughters in the front row, the girls’ curls tucked into her sides as they shared a blanket, and their older sister, Maris, sitting in the reclining lounger beside them.

  “Aunt Khloe,” Maris screamed when she saw me, popping out of her seat and running up the aisle toward us. I held the wineglasses wide so she wouldn’t knock them as she gave me a fierce hug around my middle. “Have you come to watch movies with us?”

  Krystal’s six-year-old daughter looked like my brother-in-law Jake with her sandy brown hair and bright hazel eyes. I never saw much of my sister in her, but Dad did in how quick and precocious my sister was at the same age, and I had to defer to him being right because I hadn’t been born then.