“Yep,” I choke out, still clinging to my backpack strap as I make my way across the small living room and through the hallway. The walls are still adorned with family pictures of the four of us, though I’d hardly consider us much of a family these days.
I’ve barely spoken to my sister in nearly a decade.
And I can’t blame her for that—or the way she ignores my mom’s calls.
She got the hell out just like me; but unlike me, she doesn’t owe a single person in this town a thing.
My eyes shift away from the photos as I reach the main bedroom, the door ajar. I press it inward, my eyes landing on my mother sitting in a wheelchair. She has a splint up to her right knee, and her left arm is in a cast. Her gray hair hangs loosely to her shoulders, and as she turns her head toward me, the fatigue is evident.
As is her annoyance.
“You said you’d be here around six-thirty,” she snaps, her dark brows furrowing. “I had to get out of the bed and into this wheelchair on my own.”
“I’m sorry.” I swallow the urge to defend myself.She’s just upset because she’s injured and doesn’t have my dad to help her. It’s not personal.
But it sure as hellfeelspersonal.
“Just help me get to the kitchen,” she says, her sigh lingering in the silence between us as she meets my eyes. “I’m glad you’re home, Rue. Really, I am.”
I force a smile. “Yeah, good to see you in person.”
“Hmm,” is all my mother says as I make my way to the wheelchair. I grab the handles and guide it toward the hallway, trying to steady myself as the fatigue suddenly pulls at my eyelids like a weight.
I really need a nap, but clearly that’s not happening.
The wheelchair bumps over the transitional piece as we enter into the kitchen and I situate the chair so she can look out across the unfenced backyard, rather than watching me try to operate the forty-year-old coffee pot that should’ve been replaced two decades ago.
As I fill the pot with water, I startle sideways, Bullet letting out a sudden eerie bay, straight out of theHounds of Baskerville. I whip my head around to see the beagle sitting at the threshold of the open front door, his attention on the wooded area beyond.
Did I forget to shut the front door? Seriously?
I turn the water off and set the pot down, moving toward the door. “Does he do that often?” I ask my mom as I rush across the house.
“No,” she calls out, just as I reach the threshold. “He does not.”
I stare out into the tree line, my heart in my throat as Bullet keeps barking, his attention still focused out there on something I can’t see or hear…
Or someone.
I swallow hard, reminding myself there’s only technically two people who might want to hurt me. One is dead. The other is in prison—and has no idea who I am.
But I still close the door and flip the lock.
Just for safe measure.
2
NOAH
That stupid fuckingspoiled brat ruined my life. And then nearly killed me with her car.
But goddamn, she looked good doing it.
My jaw tenses and palms sweat as I hover in the shadows of the tree line, none other than Rue Iverson herself, giving me a show from her mother’s front porch. This place looks like a dumpster now, but then again, her mother always was a piece of trash.
She just hid it well.
Rue, on the other hand, didn’t initially seem to be cut from the same cloth. She was charming and sweet to me, her pretty light brown hair falling past her shoulders in a messy sort of way. Her bright blue-green eyes always felt warm rather than icy, and that warmth matched the tone of her laugh…
