ELEVEN
Fallon
“Why would he leave the house to me?” I cleared my throat, trying to channel my insane sense of exasperation.
She shrugged, dipping a homemade French fry into her vanilla milk shake. “Dunno.”
“Well, that just doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, Augusta Belle. So you’re gonna have to do a little more explainin’ than that.” I yanked the milk shake out of her hands and sucked on it myself.
She arched an eyebrow in challenge before swiping another fry through the creamy concoction and dotting some of it on my nose. “He changed a lot the last few years. Started opening up to me after Mom passed. She was diagnosed the same month I was supposed to graduate college.”
“You went to college?” I paused, lingering on all the things she might have made of herself. Law? Engineering?
“I’m a year’s rotation short of being a physician’s assistant.” Her eyes flicked away, avoiding mine. “I moved home when Mama was diagnosed. Daddy couldn’t take care of himself, much less her, and she faded quickly. I couldn’t leave it all for him.”
I set down the milk shake, the urge to pull her into my arms and comfort that sad look off her face strong. “Sorry ’bout that. Guess I still don’t understand why he left me anything, though.”
“He opened up about a lot of things. I was gone for so long, and by the time I came back, I think he thought of me as a different person. Told me one night he wished he could have done more to help you. I didn’t know what he meant. Most of the time, he was too drunk to remember the next morning when I asked, so I took it with a grain of salt. Until I sat down with the lawyer. Until she said your name was in Daddy’s will.” She trained her gaze on me again, eyes heavy with unspoken questions.
“Your dad never talked to me. Didn’t know my pa either, as far as I know.” I shrugged, the memories of my past like more jagged pills gouging my throat on their way down. I swallowed the now familiar ache in my throat remindin’ me it was ’round about that time when I’d be nursing my first glass. “Well, doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t want the money.”
“I figured you’d say that.” She scooted a little closer, knee brushing mine and making my heart leap erratically behind the wall of my chest. I winced, feeling the actual physical pain of having her so close and not being able to reach out and touch what was mine.
What had always been mine.
I swallowed the painful throb. “Why’ve you got that look like there’s something else?”
“Because there’s something else.”
I winced again, not bothering to hide it this time. “Isn’t there always with you?” I sighed, pretty sure I wasn’t prepared for whatever was about to come next. “Go on.”
“I came across this name in some papers in the attic.” She rifled through her bag and thrust out a note, a stranger’s name scrawled in fading blue ink. “I think I should meet her.”
“Um.” I paused, eyes wavering from the note back to her hopeful face. “That’s probably just some chick your dad banged before he met your mom.” I plucked the note from her hand and turned it over, looking for I wasn’t sure what, and not finding it. “What does that have to do with me anyway?”
She frowned, pulling another stack of papers from her backpack. “I found it with this.”
My eyes blurred as the headline jumped across my vision: Fire That Destroyed Mobile Home Possible Arson
A million pinpricks of pain slammed behind my eyelids, and for the first time all day, the only thing on my mind was whiskey.
I needed the smoky burn of that golden elixir to chase away this bitter taste in my mouth.
I snatched the yellowed newspaper clipping from her hands and quickly skimmed the article.
I remember when my dad had called the Morning Star and complained that the sheriff’s office wasn’t doing a proper investigation.
I pushed my hand through my hair, conjuring the taste of that warm honey liquid that numbed my veins.
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Uh, only everything, if I were gonna put money down.” She tossed the papers behind her and scooched across the seat, both of her palms coming to rest on the hard line of my jaw. “Will you just talk to me? Drop the tough guy shit and just give me Fallon.” Her eyes searched the tired lines of my face. “I know he’s still there.”
I slammed my eyes closed, wishing with every fiber of my being that the goddamn smell of peaches and honey wasn’t invading my nostrils, weakening my walls, shattering me down to the depths of my soul right now. “You don’t know shit about it.”
I tossed the milk shake in the garbage can out my window, refusing to meet her eyes while I turned on the engine of the truck.
More I thought about it, the angrier it made me.
The balls she had to waltz in here and start questioning me about my life.
After everything?
I shook my head, wry grin sliding up the corner of my lip as I slid the truck into reverse and backed up, foot heavy on the accelerator.
“Fallon, don’t.” Her voice was soft, pleading.
I could have used her words that night.
Any words, it didn’t matter.
I needed her, and the one time I’d needed her, she wasn’t there.
“How long you known about the fire?” I was trying to piece together the timeline in my head.
She looked confused, shaking her head as she thought. “Daddy told me your place had burned down. But not until after college. After I’d moved back home. And I didn’t even think about it again until…well, I found the papers.”
I let her words hang heavy in the cab, mind tumbling down an exhausting road of what-ifs and whys.
“Guess there’s one thing you missed in that article,” I finally said.
“What?”
I nodded at the paper settled on the floorboard. “Check the date.”
She scrunched her nose, confusion bleeding across her face before she bent, the feathery wisp of paper—the very key—a portal to the worst night of my life. The night that changed everything.
“Says…” Her eyes began the article again. “In the late morning of August fourth, first responders were called to a mobile home off River Ridge Road after neighbors reported a fireball in the distance…” She stopped, tilting her head to one side like a confused little puppy. “August fourth.”
“August fourth.” My tone hardened with the reminder. “The day you disappeared.”