Page 4 of The Wrong Side of the Law

She shrugs and tries harder to frown, wanting to gain the upper hand. It’s not going to work: I’m too furious, and her expressions look ridiculous with the injections still so fresh.

“It’s just a little something to wear on the tour,” she says. “I simply have to look the part.”

And what part would that be? I keep that thought to myself, though.

“Oh, of course,” I say. “Of course you do.”

Margaret visibly relaxes—I need to work on my acid sarcasm, apparently—and drops the keys on the tray table by the door. The key and remote for my Jetta are on her keyring, the same one she’s been using since I was little. The key and fob for her Mercedes, on the other hand, arenoton the ring.

“C’mon,” she says, turning her back to me. “We’d better get to the kitchen before your brother finishes the pizza.”

As soon as she passes the door, I discreetly palm the keys and slip them into my pocket.

“After dinner, we are going to have a serious conversation,” I begin. Ahead of me, Margaret’s shoulders tighten but she keeps on walking. “We’re going to talk about money.”

My stepmother turns to face me so rapidly that her shopping slams into the wall. Her features are too stiff, too frozen to read, but the fires burning behind her eyes tell me everything I need to know about her state of mind. She’s furious. She’s just as angry as I am.

What in the hell do you have to be angry about, you bitch?

“No, Emily,” she growls. Venom drips from her tongue with every word. “We don’t have to have a talk. About money, or about anything else, for that matter. I’m not in the mood.”

“Not in the mood?” I parrot it back at her. “I wasn’t in the mood to be kicked out of law school because the tuition didn’t get paid. I wasn’t in the mood to have my phone shut off. I wasn’t in the mood to have to borrow money from Rita just to fly back home. And Ireallywasn’t in the mood to find out that you haven’t been paying the property taxes.”

My stepmother visibly wilts, opening and closing her mouth like a landed fish. It looks like she wants to say something, but I don’t give her the chance to speak.

Francis is standing in the doorway now, drawn by the commotion. His eyes are wide. How much did he hear? It doesn’t matter. He’ll find out all the gory details soon enough, anyway. I can’t protect him from this.

“You’ll have to pardon me, Margaret, because I don’t really give a damn about whether or not you’re in the mood for anything.”

“Mom?” Francis’s voice quavers. “What’s going on?”

My little brother is standing at the end of the tiny hall that leads the hallway to the kitchen. He can’t see the way the corners of her mouth twitch right now. There’s no way he can see how her eyes change from vulnerability to triumph in the space of a heartbeat. All Francis can see is the two bags dropping from his mother’s suddenly nerveless fingers.

He’s halfway down the corridor by the time her knees start to buckle, and she times it perfectly. One hand on her heart, she sags limply, collapsing into his arms.

Oh, Lord. As if that performance would work on me. I’m so pissed off at her right now that I wouldn’t dial 9-1-1 for her even if itwasreal. But then, she didn’t put on that little show for my benefit.

What the hell kind of madhouse have I come home to?

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