Page 13 of The Beach Trap

Before I can go too far down that dreamscape, my phone dings with a five-minute warning for the phone call I’ve beendreading. A rude intrusion of reality into the fantasy my life appears to be.

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Ten minutes later,I’m rolling my eyes, grateful this isn’t a video conference. I don’t think I could keep a straight face listening to the junior Callahan wax poetic about my late father. It would be one thing if his words were sincere, but they’re not.

“Even the brightest men make mistakes,” Scott Callahan says. “But at the end of the day, our lives are a tapestry of our wrongs and our rights.”

I mumble in agreement and wonder if he’s reading from a badly written manual on how to talk to grieving families after you’ve detonated a last will and testament bomb on their lives.

“As they say, time heals all wounds—and what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” My father’s lawyer stops short, as if just realizing he would have been better off with a cliché that didn’t invoke death. He tries to cover his tracks, adding, “Your father loved you very much.”

Even though there’s no warmth to the man’s voice, my heart constricts at the words I always craved from my father. My dad usually said “love you, too” when I said it first, but he wasn’t one to initiate words or gestures of love. Maybe because he knew how desperate I was to hear it. Or maybe because that part of him was broken.

I feel the prickle of tears and blink them away. My father would be the first to remind me that if I want people to take me seriously, I have to act serious.

“Have you talked toherabout the house?” I ask, interrupting Callahan before he goes any further into his uninspired script.

“Your half sister?” he asks, as if there could be anyone else.

“Please don’t call her that,” I tell him—trying to keep theemotion out of my voice. The word “sister” implies love and a shared history. She is none of those things. She represents secrets and lies and betrayal, nothing I need or want in my life.

Scott Callahan clears his throat, then says, “We spoke late last week.”

“And?” I say, annoyed he’s making me ask.

“And I can’t share details of our conversation, but your—er, Blake—mentioned getting an appraisal on the house to see what it was worth.”

My stomach clenches with the realization that Blake O’Neill isn’t going to make this easy for me. It’s hard to imagine her playing hardball—in my head, she’s still twelve years old, awkward, and shy, a girl who didn’t know the difference between a debit and a credit card.

“Can she do that?” I ask, afraid to hear the answer.

“She can’t sell it without you, but it’s her right to get an appraisal.”

“I... I...” I stammer, trying to put my anguish into words. The beach house isn’t something you can put a price tag on. It’s more than a place; it’s a living memory. My grandparents bought the three-bedroom house in Destin a million years ago, when my dad was just a kid, and I grew up spending spring breaks and summer vacations there.

Most of the good memories I have with my dad are at that house: holding hands as we chased waves, the two of us against the ocean; making the world’s best s’mores, letting our marshmallows catch fire for one brief moment; rainy days curled up on the couch watching classic movies. Destin was the one place where he left work behind and focused on my mom and me.

The sudden onset of memories makes my throat tighten, and once again, stubborn tears threaten to fall. I just lost my dad. I can’t lose our beach house, too.

“She can’t sell it,” I say.

“That’s correct,” the lawyer says. “She can’t sell it without your signature. Don’t worry about that.”

I exhale, but I’m still worried. I’m terrified Blake is going to storm into my life and take what little I have left of my dad, the way she tried to when we were young. But it didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.

“Your father was a smart man,” Scott Callahan says.

I nod, forgetting he can’t see me. My father was one of the smartest men I know, which is why he was so successful. At least he had been. And it’s probably why he was able to pull the wool over all our eyes.

“He wouldn’t have left the house to you both if he didn’t have a plan—maybe he wanted to bring you two together? Coordinate a little reunion.”

I scoff at the thought. This man clearly didn’t know my father—not the real David Steiner. He would never, ever, not in a million years want his dirty little secret to be exposed.

We know people in Destin. People know us. They knew my grandparents. If any of those people found out about this, they would talk. And if there’s one thing my dad hated, it was people talking about his personal business.

I might not have known everything about my dad, but I know that.

Before Callahan can hit me with another tired cliché, I end the call. Blake can get that appraisal, but it won’t change anything. That house belongs to me.

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