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Marilyn’s smile stayed plastered on. “Ben, honey. Would you mind helping with this? I can’t get this weird screw thing to work.”
“Oh, no, I can do it,” Rae said, trying to lower herself to the carpeted bedroom floor without losing her balance.
“No.” Ben took the screwdriver from Rae’s hands. “I’ll do it.”
“I figured we could order a pizza tonight.” Marilyn’s smile never wavered.
“Pizza!” Katelyn jumped up and down, grinning.
Rae mirrored Marilyn and smiled. “Sounds great.”
After a semiuncomfortable dinner, Rae was ready to bathe and be alone in her room.
“You can use the guest bathroom in the hallway,” Marilyn said. “There are extra towels in the linen closet.”
Rae took the longest hot shower, her tense muscles finally relaxing some after driving for over eight hours straight from Albuquerque. She wrapped a thick towel around herself and was about to quietly head back to her room when she heard hushed arguing coming from the living area. She moved farther down the hallway, staying close to the wall to hear better without being seen.
“How can you trust her, Mare? We know nothing about her.”
“She saved our daughter. What else is there to know?”
“That’s what the police said because that’s what she told them.” Rae heard Ben blow out a sigh. “She could’ve been involved in it.”
“Oh, so now you don’t believe our own daughter, everything she told the therapist?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?”
A pause. “She could be a grifter. She could be one of those people who takes over your house and never leaves.”
“If you keep acting rude to her, you’re going to ruin this for us.” Marilyn spat out each word.
“Ruin this for you, you mean.”
“Fuck you.”
Another pause and a loud exhalation. “Okay. I’ll be nicer to her.”
“You better. You owe me this.”
Rae heard movement, and she darted down the hallway to her bedroom and shut the door. She swallowed over the anxiety balled up in her throat. She wasn’t sure what she had just walked into by coming to live with the Reids. She repeated to herself,This is only temporary.
CHAPTER 50
RAE
2024
Dayton’s house wasn’t too far from Rae’s. It was tucked away in an older neighborhood close to the Paseo Arts District, where Rae and Lily would go to the First Friday Art Walk most months. She liked to imagine them going with Dayton and his daughter sometime, assuming whatever she had with him wasn’t just a fling, but the idea dissolved when she considered what she was about to do. She didn’t know if he would trust her again after she stole the flash drive.
She texted him when she arrived like he had asked. He opened the door and quietly said, “Glad you found it okay.”
He took the wine she’d brought from her hands, and she glanced around at his place as he ushered her toward the back of his house. His home was tidy, something she didn’t expect for a single dad, and tastefully decorated in a rustic farmhouse style mixed with Native American artwork. They stopped by the kitchen, which had French doors leading to a back deck.
“Let me open this really quick,” he said, grabbing a wine opener and two juice glasses.
Rae thought of Viv, how she’d drink her wine in juice glasses too. She used to say it was the Italian way, but she said the same about many things that probably had nothing to do with being Italian.
