Page 52 of Bad Blood
“You didn’t use to be so antisocial,” I countered.
Shane snorted. “You know what they say, Red: dance it off.”
Hearing my mother’s words come out of his mouth hit me like a jolt of electricity. This was real. My mom and I hadn’t just lived here. We’d put down roots. We’d had people in our lives. We’d had something to miss when we hit the road.
“You want to look around?” Shane said, his surly tone softening ever so slightly. “Far be it from me to stop you. I just live here.”
Wordlessly, I took Shane up on his invitation and began making my way through the house.Entryway. Kitchen. Small spiral staircase. I knew before I took the first step that at the top of the stairs, I’d find two bedrooms. When I came to stand in the doorway of the room that had been my mother’s, another memory hit me with the force of a tidal wave.
Nightmare. It’s dark. I want my mom. But Mommy isn’t alone.
“I don’t deserve you.” Mommy has her back toward Kane. “I told you about the kind of man my father is. I didn’t tell you that I have a younger sister. I left her in that hellhole, and I never looked back.”
I rub at the corners of my eyes. Sister? Mommy doesn’t have a sister. Just me.
It’s just Mommy and Kane and me.
I shift. The floor creaks beneath me. They turn—
The rest of the memory was less vivid. I didn’t feel it, didn’t live through it again, but I knew what had happened—knew that my mother and Kane had turned to see me, that Kane had been the one to bend down to my level, to pick me up. I knew that he’d told my mother that he was the one who didn’t deserve her.
Didn’t deserveus.
“You okay?”
I wasn’t sure how long Dean had been standing behind me, but I let my body lean back into his. I let myself feel his warmth, the way my mother had felt Kane’s.
“I knew that Kane and my mom were involved,” I said, the words like sandpaper in my throat. “I didn’t realize that he was part of my life, too.”
Kane Darby and my mother hadn’t just been involved. They’d been serious.
If you were serious about him, I thought, picturing my mom the way she’d looked in the memory,if he was serious about us, why did we leave?As I descended the spiral staircase, my stomach twisted. I felt the way I did every time I dreamed about my mother’s dressing room.
Don’t go in there. Don’t open the door.
My gaze locked on the foot of the stairs. My heart raced, but a memory never came. I just stood there, until I heard a loud crash from the kitchen. I made a beeline for the noise, but Agent Sterling cut me off. She gave me a warning look and then led the way into the kitchen herself.
Shane was standing over the sink, blood dripping from his hand, a broken glass on the floor.
Blood.
Go back to sleep, baby, my mother’s voice whispered from somewhere in my memory.It’s just a dream.
“Have an accident?” Agent Sterling asked Shane.
Shane ignored Sterling and narrowed his eyes at me. “You shouldn’t have come back here, little Red.”
“Watch it.” Dean’s voice was low and full of warning.
Shane ignored him. “The last thing Gaither needs is outsiders buying into what Serenity Ranch is selling. You should tell your little friend that,” he continued, his voice dripping with venom, “ifyou see her again.”
For a moment, I felt like I was watching this interaction from outside my body.
“What little friend?” I asked.
Shane didn’t answer. He grabbed a paper towel, pressed it onto his bleeding hand, then tried to storm past us. Agent Sterling stopped him. For the first time since we’d come to Gaither, she took out her badge.
“I’m with the FBI,” she said. “And you need to back up and explain exactly what you meant just now.”
