“What difference does it make?”
“For fuck’s sake, Megan. You saw her, didn’t you? She showed up while you were broadcasting your presence to every sensitive in a ten-mile radius, right?”
“So what if she did?”
“Are you serious?”
“We got away, we’re fine, I don’t see why you’re so mad at me!” She glanced to her right. Brian was making every pretence of reading her battered copy of The Caine Mutiny, but the speed with which Malleus and Roc looked away told her they’d been hanging on her every word.
Now she looked like some dumb little girl in front of them. “You don’t own me, Greyson,” she snapped. “It’s not up to you what I do or don’t do.”
Pause. “Fine. Do whatever you like.”
“I will!”
“Good.”
“Good!”
This was what her anger and embarrassment had reduced her to. The kind of fights thirteen-year-olds had.
“Just do me a favor, send Malleus home if you’ve decided to commit messy suicide. He’s rather valuable to me.”
“And I’m—you know what? Fine.”
She slammed the phone shut and tossed it back to Malleus. Her entire body shook.
So that was that. He’d yelled at her, she’d yelled at him, and now she’d actually hung up on him. She waited—along with everyone else in the room—for the phone to start ringing again.
It didn’t.
Brian cleared his throat. “It’s getting kind of late, Megan, I should probably call Julie and see if she’ll pick me up. I’m too buzzed to drive.”
She nodded. “Sure, go ahead.”
Malleus, of course, wouldn’t be leaving unless ordered to, and Roc—Roc was enjoying her pain too much. Little demon bastard. Maybe later she’d stub her toe as dessert for him.
So Ktana Leyak was their mother? She could have them, then. Megan would be well out of it all. She could sever the connection, if that was possible—which it must be—and be done with the whole damned thing, and who cared what happened next?
She could build a new practice, out of her house. Lots of counselors did that. Or she could find a little office somewhere, closer to home, where she didn’t have to worry about partners. She could put her rates on a sliding scale, like she’d wanted to before. She could—
Brian had just touched the phone when it rang. Megan watched as he started to pick it up, then glanced at her, realizing what he’d done. She shrugged. Might as well get it over with.
If it was over with. He’d called her back; maybe now they’d both calmed down, they could talk like reasonable adults again, and she’d apologize, and he’d hint at an apology, and all would be well, she thought. They’d never really had a fight before.
“Hello?”
“Megan?”
She knew that voice. She couldn’t quite place it, but she knew it, and for a second the world seemed to twist before it fell back into place.
“Mother?”
“Megan, it’s your mother,” the voice continued, as if Megan hadn’t spoken. So yes, definitely her mother. “There’s been a—there’s been…” She cleared her throat. “Megan, you need to come home. Your father’s died.”
Chapter 9
Hostile shadows hid in the corners of buildings and under trees as Megan drove through what the residents of Grant Falls referred to as “downtown.” Or at least used to refer to as. She hadn’t been here in a dozen years.
The heater in her car was turned up full blast but she still shivered. A funeral and the reading of a will and The Lawyer Says You Have to Be There.
Not “Honey, you should come home and say good-bye.” Not “Sweetheart, maybe it’s time we got back in touch.” No. “The lawyer says you need to be there for the reading of the will. Just a formality, of course.” Which meant she wasn’t inheriting anything, not that she cared.
Megan had left her suitcase back at the dubiously named Bev’s Holiday Hideaway on the outskirts of town—although who would ever holiday in Grant Falls she had no idea—and, grabbing a cup of coffee from the McDonald’s next door, started making her way home.
To her parents’ home, anyway.
Hardly anyone was out on the windswept streets, but Megan still felt eyes on her. She’d left Grant Falls to go to college and never returned. Now it seemed the time away had been just a short vacation, that the town had sat here waiting for her with the patience of a predator at a watering hole.
Her hands slipped on the wheel a little as she made the left turn that would take her to her old home. It was a longer route, but it would allow her to avoid passing the hospital where she’d spent several months of her fifteenth year. She never wanted to see that building again.
Not that she remembered most of it. She’d been possessed by the Accuser at the time, and had blocked the entire experience out of her memory until she’d been forced to confront it all in order to defeat him for good.
A child ran out into the street in front of her. Megan slammed on the brakes. Her coffee spilled all over her jeans.
“Damn it! Ow!” She set the cup down on the seat next to her, wishing for once she was as finicky as Tera, who always accepted napkins no matter where she was.
Megan glared at the child, a boy of about eight, totally anonymous in his red coat and cap. He stuck out his tongue. Brat.
“Michael!” Oh great. The last thing Megan needed now was the kid’s mother. She hadn’t even come close to hitting him, for fuck’s sake, but something about the look of the heavyset woman scurrying toward her and the smug expression on the boy’s face told her that wouldn’t matter.
She was right. The woman marched over and raised an imperious fist to start tapping on the window. Megan took a grim pleasure in rolling it down before she could.
“You need to watch where you’re going! You almost hit my son!”
“Perhaps your son should watch where he’s going,” Megan said pleasantly. “Instead of just darting out into the street.”
“How dare you! You—Megan Chase!”
Oh, shit. Just as recognition hit the plump, high-blooded face of the woman, it hit Megan. Cassie Bryant, from Megan’s gym class senior year.
There was no point recalling the specifics of Cassie’s cruelty toward Megan. She hadn’t been unique in it.
“Yes. Hi, Cassie.” Megan forced a smile. “Look, if your son is okay, I’m just going to—”
“He’s fine,” Cassie said dismissively. She hadn’t even glanced at her son since her beady eyes had fixed on Megan. “What are you doing back in town? It’s so good to see you! We heard about you, you know, on the radio and everything…”
Ah, so that explained it. “Right. Yes. I really should be—”
“You know, we should go out one night! For a drink. I remember where you live, I could come over and get you.”
“I’m…well, my father died, so I don’t really think—”
“Oh no!” Cassie’s hands, heavy with cheap gold, clasped over her mouth. “Oh, Megan, I sure am sorry to hear that. When is the funeral?”
“Wednesday. I’m sorry, Cassie, but I really have to go.”
“Of course, of course. I’ll tell you what. I’ll call you later, over at your parents’—your mom’s—house, okay? I think you need a night out with the girls to cheer you up. I’m still friends with all of them, you know, me and Amy and Jen, we all still live in town. We could all go out? Sound good?”
It sounded as appealing as an appendectomy with no anesthetic. “If I have time, sure. Sounds fun.”
She gave Michael, sulking by the side of the road, a half smile and drove away. Great. The last thing she wanted or needed was for her meager fame outside the town to haunt her even more than her infamy inside it already did.
“Megan.” Her mother stood in the doorway, her blonde hair tucked into a smooth chignon, her black dress gliding over a figure still slim. No late-life weight gain for Diane Chase. For a minute time seemed to shift. Megan was acutely aware of the splotch of cold coffee staining her jeans.