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“What made you accept a deal like this?”
“Do you have anything to say about the raid on Nexus Lab? Were you aware the drugs your company produced were sold on the black market?”
“Is this related to your husband’s sudden resignation from his position as police chief?”
“No comment,” Jacqueline hisses.
I scoff and Maisy slides her arm around my waist. Was it worth it? That’s what I want to ask her, Richard Landry, and my parents. If any of them could go back, would they let greed rule them again?
Jacqueline glares at the DEA agent that opens the back door of one of their vehicles near the barricade we’re behind. It makes something old and decayed unlock in my chest as we watch her be folded into the back seat.
The Ridgeview, Colorado that anyone knew will never be the same after today. The secrets are spilled into the light.
Maisy turns to me. “I’ve seen enough. Have you?”
“Yeah.”
Tossing one last glance at the car Jacqueline was stuffed into, I turn my back on a dark chapter in my life feeling lighter, walking hand in hand with the girl I love.
A week later, I’m breathing in the midsummer mountain air under the late afternoon sun with Maisy and her friends. The grassy sloping clearing we’re lounging in is full of wildflowers and butterflies floating on the breeze. It’s just off the road, our cars and my motorcycle parked in a gravel ditch at the edge of the field. Devlin and Connor kick a soccer ball back and forth shirtless while Lucas cracks open a beer and offers the first cool sip to Gemma sprawled between his legs.
Thea is braiding Maisy’s hair in two french braids, Blair’s already done in some intricate looking crown made of shiny dark hair.
She’s been more herself this week, her smiles coming easier. I’ve been waiting for her to wake up from nightmares, but they don’t plague her the same way they claimed my mind for years. What happened didn’t break her.
The news has daily coverage on Jacqueline and the pharmaceutical company’s illicit drug ring scandal. Jacqueline is the public fall guy, but details about the investigation have also come out with information on the mayor’s involvement, and about my parents and their own sins that led to their fatal demise. It’s strange, after finding out everything I thought I knew about them was a lie, I don’t want to shy away from the whispers that continue when my name is mentioned.
It doesn’t matter. Maisy knows who I am. That’s all I need, a few good people who I consider my family to have my back.
Since the news broke, she’s been spending a lot of time with her brother. We leave town today for the road trip she’s dreamed of for half her life. She tells me Holden has plans to follow the girl he met at the local community college when she transfers for the fall semester to a different school. They’re both done with Ridgeview. The only good thing this town has is her friends. Without them, we’d never come back here again.
“I brought you something.” Maisy appears in front of me, shuffling on her knees in the grass. Her hair is braided, a wildflower tucked behind her ear.
I rake my teeth over my lip, grasping her hips. She holds up a daisy between us with thin purple petals, identical to the one I gave her when she was eight and the ones I picked for her to win her heart back. The corner of my mouth kicks up and I take the flower. She presses her lips to mine and I drag her into my lap, deepening our kiss.
Connor pauses his one-on-one soccer game with Devlin to howl like a coyote. Laughing, Maisy breaks away and tucks her face into my neck.
“The fuck is that supposed to mean?” I ask him.
He shoots me a mischievous grin. “Watch and learn, Foxy.”
“No,” I bark, nearly choking when Maisy’s tongue darts out against my throat. “Don’t pick that up from Colt.”
His smirk is unrepentant as he scoops his wife into his arms and plants a kiss on her lips while she giggles. Lucas does the wild howl this time with his hands cupped around his mouth.
“What the fuck,” I mutter. “Your friends are crazy.”
Devlin chuckles as he drops to the grass nearby with the soccer ball tucked beneath his elbow. Blair wraps her arms around his shoulders from behind and kisses his cheek.
“It’s the SLHS coyote call,” Devlin explains. “I don’t know how far back it goes, but when there’s PDA, the mascot is the calling card. A right of passage in a way.”
I shake my head. “This fucking town.”
“Tell me about it,” Blair says with an exasperated roll of her eyes. “High school here was weird as hell.”
“You love it,” Gemma says slyly, keeping her eyes closed and her face upturned to the sunshine while Lucas slips his hand beneath her shirt to caress her stomach.
“You learn to deal with it,” Thea offers after she extricates herself from Connor. Her cheeks are pink and there’s a brightness lighting her eyes up. “Who’s hungry?”
