Page 4 of The Heiress

“Honestly, the sooner this house is empty, the better.” So I could finally freak out all alone.

I walked them out to their cars so they could start their long drive back to Gainesville. A drive I was about to start making on a regular basis.Fuck.

“I don’t want to see or hear from you before Wednesday,” David scolded. “Unless of course you need us. Then totally call us.”

I hugged him. “Thank you for the flexibility.”

When I got the phone call he took the lead and quickly sketched out a plan. I would leave immediately, taking the rest of the week and the first half of the next off. Then when I came back—and only if I felt ready—I would work my forty hours Monday through Thursday, sleep in on Fridays and drive back to the island for long weekends of sorting through a lifetime of things. There was no one else to do it.

Besides, I needed answers that had to be in here somewhere.

“I wish I could do more.” He squeezed my shoulders, then climbed into the car. “We’re just a phone call away.”

I stood outside for longer than I should have, just staring off into space. Mostly because if I engaged my brain at all, it went into a panic spiral that I was afraid no drug could stop.

Eventually, though, I was called back in. I shook hands, smiled, agreed with whatever anyone said, wondered when the heck they’d finally leave me alone.

“Your parents were the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met,” sniffed our neighbor, Catherine.

But were they? Were they kind and generous? Could two people who lied with such ease, who participated in a crime of this magnitude, really be kind and generous? I wanted to scream,Lies!at the top of my lungs and never stop. Like a superhero beacon of power streaming out of my chest until all the hurt was finally exhausted from my body. But that wouldn’t be appropriate and I wasn’t ready for anyone to know what I’d just learned in a freakingletter.

The urge to flee was strong. I wanted to escapeeverything.The grief, the information, the people. All of it. There was too much light, too much noise, too much to feel.

What I needed was a book to escape with. I could remain physically present while simultaneously giving my mind a place to find some quiet. A nice fictional fantasy to slide inside and hide. There was nothing better for forgetting the real world than a good book. The room we stood in was full of them, but they were my parents’ books. That meant they were travel books, academic textbooks, and the occasional true crime novel. What I needed was something fantastical, something completely unreal. My room was mostly empty, but I still kept a few things in there, including a couple of books. If there was any chance of finding something to read, it would be there.

So I excused myself from whatever conversation I wasn’t having with a few of my old volleyball teammates, and started down the narrow hallway that led to the secondary bedrooms.

But before I could reach my potential freedom everything slowed down and blurred to a stop ashisvoice rang out.

“Sam.”

Jace Malone. I knew his voice like I knew my own. We met when we were four and he wandered into my backyard because he thought my sandbox looked fun. We played for nearly fifteen minutes before his frantic mother came running up, but by then we’d already decided we were best friends for life. There was no separating us.

And we remained that close for the next fourteen years.

Until I thought I knew better.

“Sam, I’m so, so sorry.” It had been five years since I’d seen him last and nine since our friendship-ending screaming match.

Quite frankly, I didn’t know what to do. Part of me had hoped he'd show up today, while the other part of me dreaded seeing him again. I could feel him stepping closer and closer, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn around and face him. So instead I called over my shoulder like a coward. “Thank you for coming. Mom and Dad would have liked that you came to say goodbye to them.” God, even saying the wordgoodbyehurt.

Gone. Forever. Mom would never randomly call to tell me about the cookies she burned or how Dad thought he could fix the shower but ended up flooding the bathroom instead.

They’d never get to tell me why they lied to me.

He rested his warm hand on my shoulder andbamnine years vanished. We should be strangers after all this time but instead it felt like the last time he touched me was only yesterday.

“Of course I came,” he said so low it was almost a whisper. “I would have come sooner but,” he let out a frustrated sigh, “but I didn’t want to upset you even more.”

I screwed my eyes shut because the mix of feelings overwhelmed me and I thought maybe, just maybe, closing my eyes had the power to block some of the emotions out.

Icaused this rift between us and I didn’t know how to bridge the ocean that formed between us as adults. I didn’t know if he still hated me for the things I said and I didn’t know if I still hated him for the choices he made.

Being a grownup sucked.

Luckily Jace didn’t care about any of that. He tugged on my shoulder and I turned into his embrace. His big, warm arms wrapped around me—arms that were bigger than I remembered—and rested his chin on the top of my head just like he used to. “Just for today, can you forget the last nine years and let me be your friend again?”

Whatever fight was left in me dissolved and I sank into his chest, my shoulders dropping, my hands relaxing. So much tension coiled up in my body, and most of it I wasn’t aware of until this exact moment. It was in my jaw, my shoulders, my scalp, even my wrists.Crazy.And at first that release was oh, so welcome, but then the pain hit and I realized that the tension was what was keeping the grief from overwhelming me. Like armor. But now that armor was gone.

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