Take Me Back (Paradise, Idaho Book 4)

by Rosalind James

  “That he’d disinherited me,” Hallie said. She was still numb. No, not numb. Reeling. “Yeah. He told me that, too. Can I get a copy of all that, please?” she asked Bob. “The part that’s about what I’d have to do, if I decided to?”

  She heard the faint huff from Faye and ignored it. And she didn’t look at Jim at all.

  “Of course,” Bob said. “And to answer your question,” he told Faye, “the amount in question, outside of the corporation, is somewhere in the neighborhood of four million in investments, at its current valuation, after the stated sums are paid out to the legatees. Keep in mind that value can fluctuate significantly, so in even six months—who knows what it will be. Most of Henry’s net worth was in the corporation.”

  “Which is worth what?” Faye asked.

  Bob hummed. “Difficult to say. The face value of the shares in a closely held corporation is, of course, meaningless. Some millions. I wouldn’t want to commit beyond that.”

  Some millions.

  “You’re shitting me,” Cole said again.

  Jim looked at him and snapped, “Try again.”

  “I mean,” Cole said, “I’m his kid? And I get the same as Hallie?”

  “Yes,” Bob said.

  Nobody was looking at Vicki. Well, Hallie realized with a glance to her right, nobody but Faye. Faye opened her mouth, and Hallie jumped into the breach, because Vicki didn’t deserve to hear what Faye would have to say. “Can you explain my part again, please?” she asked Bob.

  “Of course,” he said. “You get living expenses of roughly ten thousand dollars a month, and then nearly half of the residue of the estate, after Cole’s and Dale’s shares are paid out, after six months. That date will be reached on February twenty-eighth of next year, which is actually”—he consulted some notes—“about five and a half months from now. If you live in Henry’s house for all of that time and don’t have a—” He gave a dry little cough that could only have come from a lawyer. “A sexual relationship with Jim, here.”

  Hallie felt the sticky strings of her father’s web tightening around her. She didn’t dare look at Jim, but she’d already seen his face. She’d call that look stony. “And if I leave, I get the house, and that’s it.”

  “Yes. If you’re gone for more than three days a month, or violate the . . . other provisions, your share is divided between Cole and Dale.”

  Hallie glanced down the table at the boy, and he dropped his gaze. “I’ll need to think about it,” she said.

  Bob raised both hands flat above the table. “Of course. Entirely your choice.”

  She couldn’t process it. But she wasn’t the one who’d had the biggest shock here. She could see the expression on Anthea’s face, too. On Cole’s and Vicki’s. And, she was sure, on Jim’s if she dared look at him again. It was too hard on all of them, having this secret spilled in front of everyone. She was betting that it had been a secret to all of them. To everyone but Vicki. To Vicki, she was suddenly sure that it had been more like shame. That would have been why it was a secret. Her father hadn’t been an honorable man. There must have been something all wrong about it, and she’d bet it was bad.

  For once, she took action. She stood up and said, “I think we’re done, then, right? At least I am. If you’ll e-mail me that copy, Bob, I’d appreciate it.”

  Jim was up as fast as she was, a hand under his mother’s elbow. “She’s right,” he said. “We’re done.” He looked at Bob. “We’d like a copy, too, please. We’ll call you if we have questions.”

  Hallie left the room first, not checking to see who was behind her. She didn’t stick around, either. She hit the front door, headed out into the heat, and thought, Car. Suitcase. Leaving. Or not. Which was when she hesitated.

  Anthea came up beside her, looking distracted. “Hey,” she said. “You OK?”

  Hallie shook her head. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Did you know what it said? Couldn’t you have warned your mom? That was too hard. That wasn’t fair.”

  “No,” Anthea said. “I didn’t know. It would have been a breach of confidentiality for Bob to tell me.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I didn’t guess. I should have, but I didn’t. Or I did, but I didn’t want to. I hate to leave you, but I need to go be with my mom. Call you later? You want to come to dinner?”

  Hallie shook her head. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. I’m just . . .” She ran a hand through her carefully arranged curls, not caring how much she messed them up. “I can’t decide. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Anthea nodded, hesitated, and left, and Hallie thought, Guess I’ll go home. And remembered.

  She turned and went after Jim, who was standing with his family. “May I talk to you a minute?” she asked him.

  He stared at her, looking even more shut down than the day before, then glanced at Anthea. “Go on and take Mom home, would you? I’ll be right there.”

  “I’m not an invalid,” Vicki snapped. Her own look at Hallie wasn’t one bit friendly. “I don’t need to be watched over.”

  “Maybe I think family’d be good right now,” Jim said. “But whatever you want.” His expression, his voice were calm. Almost wooden. But he couldn’t be feeling that way. Not possible.

  “No,” Vicki said. “Come home.” Another sharp glance at Hallie. “Seems to me you could wait, whatever it is. Show some respect.”

  Hallie swallowed, folded her arms, then unfolded them. She wanted to apologize. For herself, for her father, for everything. She wanted to run. She was still groping for something to say when Anthea said, “Come on, Mom. Maybe Hallie deserves some respect, too. She just lost her dad. She just got her own news. How do you imagine she feels about Cole?”

  It hit Hallie like a punch in the stomach. She looked at Cole, saw him staring back at her, his face white under the mop of blond hair. Maybe searching for the same thing she was.

  A likeness.

  He’s my brother.

  DISCLOSURES

  “I . . .” Hallie started to shake. It was so hot out here. She needed a drink of water. “I don’t—”

  Anthea said, “Hallie!” But the voice came from down a dark tunnel, and it was Jim who grabbed her, Jim who put an arm around her and said, “Come on.” He told the others, “Go on home. I’ll be right there,” and then he was leading Hallie back toward the law office.

  She shied away from the door like a horse at the scene of a kill. “No,” she said. “Not in there. And don’t try being nice to me now. It’s not going to work anyway. For, oh, millions of reasons.”

  If that was bitter, sue her.

  “I’m not being nice,” he said. “I want to dump you on your butt and walk away. I’m doing my job. Come on.”

  She shrugged his arm off and walked down the street and across Main with him to Brewster’s. He went with her, even though all she wanted was to be alone, and when they were in the air-conditioning, he said, “Go sit down. What do you want?”

  “Beer. And plenty of it. But I’m going to get an iced latte.”

  “No. I am. Go sit. You’re pale as a ghost.”

  “I’m always pale.”

  A muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth. “Paler than ever. Sit down. I’ll bring you a water.”

  A few minutes later, he was back with their drinks, then kicking out a chair and sitting down himself. She said, “I don’t know what to think now. Not the part about you and me,” she hurried to add. “I mean the rest of it.”

  He sighed and scratched the back of his head, not messing up his hair. It was too short for that. “Man, neither do I. My mom and your dad. Wow.”

  “Do you think it was consensual?” she asked quietly. “Or fully consensual?”

  His hand stopped at the back of his neck, and his hard eyes met hers. “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “He wasn’t a good man. He had the power. And she was out there every week, cleaning his house.”

  His head snapped back. “I’d forgotten that.”

  “No, yo
u hadn’t.” She wasn’t that girl who ran away anymore. She was a woman who faced facts, at least with herself. “It was all wrapped up in how you felt about me. Why you slept with me out of nowhere, and why you dumped me afterwards. Why you had to hurt me.”

  His expression was so rigid that his mouth barely moved when he said, “That’s not true.”

  She started to answer, then stopped herself and sighed. “I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. It’s done. Your brother is my brother. That’s what matters. He’s going to be hurting, and excited, and confused, and mad. He’s going to be all mixed up, and it’s going to be hard. For your mom, too.”

  “And you would know. And care.” His voice was flat.

  It was cool in here, but she was burning. “I’m aware of what my father was.” She tried to keep her tone as level as his, but it didn’t work. “I’m aware of how he used people, how he hurt people. That’s one reason I hadn’t spoken to him in five years. And I teach high school. I know teenagers. I even like them. So don’t you tell me that I don’t know or don’t care about how your brother—my brother—might feel.”

  “It takes more than biology to make family.”

  Her hand was trembling on the latte glass. “I know that. You bet I do. Sometimes even biology doesn’t do it. I know that, too.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head violently. Calm down. Forget it. It’s all over. “Never mind. No. Look, we aren’t going to get anywhere. There’s no point. Go talk to your mom. Go be with your brother.”

  “You wanted to tell me something,” he said. “Or ask me something. What?”

  Breathe. Calm. “When I went to the house last night,” she said, “it was a mess. Fingerprint dust.” She took a gulp of her latte in an effort to hold the sickness back, swallowed wrong, and coughed. Then kept coughing for a full minute, gasping for air, grabbing a napkin and holding it to her mouth, her eyes streaming with tears.

  This is how Dad died. Choking. The thought was trying to panic her.

  Jim had jumped up, was patting her on the back. Thumping her. She wanted to tell him to stop, but she couldn’t speak.

  Finally, she got herself back under control. “Sorry,” she said weakly, mopping her eyes one more time, dabbing at the table where she’d, humiliatingly, sprayed coffee. “Right.” If she’d had to choose a way not to be during this encounter, this would be it.

  Jim sat down again, and she said, trying for businesslike, for unemotional, “There was gray stuff all over the house. Fingerprint dust, I suppose. And his chalk outline on the coffee table. And blood.” She met Jim’s gaze squarely this time. “I can’t believe you normally leave a house like that for somebody to find. Did you do it because it was me? So it would upset me? If you did, it worked. It upset me.”

  He didn’t look stony now. His mouth actually opened a couple times before he said, “No. Of course I didn’t do that. Who would clean it up? We don’t have any kind of crew for that. Or any budget, either.”

  “When there’s a wreck on the highway,” she insisted, “somebody sweeps up the glass and takes away the pieces. They’re not just left there. I can’t believe you’d leave somebody’s . . . somebody’s blood for their family to clean up. For them to find, after the funeral.” She was shivering, remembering. She’d thought she’d come through on the other side, but it seemed she still had so much further to go.

  “I’m sorry,” Jim said. “But that’s how it is. Bob will have known, though. Maybe I didn’t tell him, but I assumed he’d know.” He shook his head. “Can’t remember. But he should’ve had it cleaned, or at least told you.”

  All the fight went out of her, and too much of her spirit along with it. Of course Jim wouldn’t have done it on purpose. He didn’t care. She knew that. “Never mind. I’ll . . .” She raised a hand, dropped it again. “Clean it, I guess. I’ll deal. Sorry. Jumped to conclusions. It was a shock, that’s all.”

  “Somebody could help you with that.”

  “Yeah. Anthea already offered. Awkward, under the circumstances, for her to be in my father’s house, wouldn’t you say?”

  Would she lose her best friend if she decided to stay? Could their friendship survive this kind of divided loyalty? Anthea’s best friend versus her own family. Hallie didn’t want to put it to the test. She wanted to leave town now, to walk away from the money and the past. It wasn’t worth it.

  “I wasn’t thinking about Anthea,” Jim said, not addressing the rest of what she’d said. “I was thinking about your father’s cleaner, Eileen. She asked me about it. She’d like to keep on with the job. She needs the work. Got little kids.” He pulled a notebook out of the back pocket of his jeans and turned it around so Hallie could see the number. “She’s the one who found the body, though, so I’m not too sure about the blood. She was pretty shook up herself. Nice woman, but she’s had a hard time. And an extra hard time out there. Go easy on her.”

  Hallie looked at the notebook, then back at Jim. “You’re kidding. No.”

  “No what?”

  “He wasn’t sleeping with her, too.”

  “I can’t discuss this with you, Hallie.” Which told her it was true, and it was bad. “If you want her number, take it.”

  She tapped the name and number into her phone with fingers that insisted on shaking despite all her attempts to control them.

  He asked, “You OK?”

  She nodded, not looking up, and he stood and said, “I’m going to go, then. My mom. Cole.” He hesitated, though, beside the table. “Call Anthea,” he said. “No matter how Cole or my mom feel about her doing it, you have to know that she’ll help you anyway. She’ll clean up that blood, too. It’d take more than a little blood to spook my sister.”

  Jim headed back up the street, moving fast despite the heat, and thought, That went well. Not.

  He had to go talk to his mom and to Cole. But first, he had to pick up Mac.

  He set the memory of Hallie’s white, stricken face aside and drove to Danielle’s, where he stood in her kitchen, made small talk, and waited for his daughter, letting the professional mask fall down over his face and seeing Danielle draw back as if he’d slapped her. He wanted to tell her not to take it personally, but he didn’t, because he didn’t know how. Seemed it was his day to upset women.

  Finally, though, Mac came out, and he said good-bye to Danielle with relief, tossed Mac’s bag in the back of the rig, and waited for her to fasten her seatbelt before he took off.

  “Good time?” he asked her.

  “Yeah.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Talked.”

  “What else?”

  She sighed. “Dad. Nothing else. It was a sleepover. We talked and did hair and stuff.”

  “Oh.” He tried to imagine sitting around with a bunch of guys when he’d been eleven—hell, now—and just talking, but he couldn’t. Playing basketball, sure. Watching basketball, even. But talking? Nope.

  “Hair looks good,” he said, glancing across at her. It was in a high ponytail, sectioned off all the way down with white-flowered bands that contrasted with its darkness. “You do that?”

  “No. Crystal did.” She fingered the ends. “Not as good as yours, though.”

  “That’s loyal.”

  “No. It’s true. Yours are the best. Everybody says so.”

  “Thanks.”

  It had started out of desperation, the first morning Maya had been too sick and weak to sit up in bed and do Mac’s hair before school. Mac had started to throw a weeping, hysterical fit, and Jim had been furious.

  “You don’t talk to your mom like that,” he’d thundered over his nine-year-old daughter’s sobs. “Do you think she doesn’t want to take care of you? How can you be that selfish? Can’t you see how much it hurts her that she can’t?”

  “Honey.” Maya had turned her pale face toward him on the pillow, her own dark hair lying lank against the white cotton. “No.” She’d reached a hand out to her weeping daughter. “Go to your roo
m, baby. Daddy will come talk to you in a minute.”

  Mac had run out, her feet pounding down the hall. “No,” Jim had said as soon as he’d heard her sobs fade, her door slam. “She doesn’t get to do that. Not OK.”

  Maya had patted the mattress, and Jim had sat down beside her, wanting to bury his head in his hands and sob himself. Too much. Last straw.

  “Everything’s changing for her,” Maya had said, her hand on her husband’s uniform sleeve. Such a fragile grasp to have so much hold on his heart. Such a weak touch to be able to bring him to his knees. “She’s so scared, babe. She’s as scared as you are, and she doesn’t have your strength, not yet. She can’t hide her fear like you can. She’s trying, but it’s coming out all the same, because she can’t hold it back anymore. She’s lost. You’ve got to help her find her way.”

  “Babe . . .” Jim had had to swallow, and he’d felt himself tearing up anyway.

  “I know,” Maya had said. “I know. But you have to do it. You have to help her find her strength. For both of us. For all of us.” She’d taken his hand, put it on the mound of her belly, held it there over the ripple that was their son moving inside her, and smiled at him.

  He’d broken down some then, and she’d held on to him, had held strong, and he’d thought, I do not deserve this woman. And I’m not going to get to keep her.

  And then he’d gone down the hall and done his daughter’s hair.

  His efforts hadn’t turned out well that first time, but he’d kept doing it, because he’d had no choice. And he’d improved, eventually.

  Now, Mac looked across the truck at him, interrupting his memories. “What?”

  “What?” he asked in return.

  “What happened?” she asked. “How come you’re all weird?”

  “Me? I’m not weird. I need you to stay at Aunt Anthea’s for a while, though.” He turned onto the east end of A Street, the outer fringes of the good part of town. “I need to go over to Grandma’s for a little bit.”