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“Ah.” Allie leaned back in her chair, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked at the cigarette.
Stay calm. I can do this.
“You want my help now?”
“I need to look through Luke’s things.”
Allie stilled, smoke curling from the gray ash tip of her cigarette.
“It’s…” Jo gathered her courage. “It’s for an article I’m working on.”
“An article?”
“Yes, an article. On Raptor.”
“Do you not read the papers? The court case is done. Compensation paid. People went to prison. It’s over.”
“Yes. I know. That’s why—”
“Can’t you just let your brother rest in peace?” Allie leaned forward, her nose wrinkling in distaste. “You know what you need? A man.”
As if.
Allie continued the verbal onslaught. “Maybe then you’d stop wasting your time running around pretending like you know something no one else does.”
But I do.
Jo removed her hands from the table, curled them into fists in her lap. “I don’t think the court case is the end of it. Raptor—”
Allie shook her head and squashed her half-smoked cigarette into an ashtray. “He’s dead, and now you want to go poking through his things?”
“Everything okay, babe?” A beefy man wandered into the kitchen; T-shirt sleeves stretched to breaking on impossibly large biceps. Acne peppered his cheeks and forehead.
Allie fluttered her clumpy, fake eyelashes, but coy didn’t really work at over forty. “Yes, babe. This is Luke’s sister, Jo. Jo, this is Steve.”
The man twitched his head in Jo’s direction as he slid a proprietorial meaty hand along the back of Allie’s neck. “All right?”
“Yes, thank you.” How long had he been here? Had her brother’s sheets even cooled before Allie invited Steve to come stay? “Nice to meet you.”
“Jo wants to look through Luke’s things.”
Steve sucked air through his teeth.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Allie blew a stream of smoke from between her lipsticked lips. “Besides, men from Raptor came and took away everything important.”
Of course.
She should have known better. Of course, this was a stupid fucking idea. Nothing would ever change because she couldn’t undo and rewrite the past, and Raptor had probably taken anything of use. “Allie. I know we’ve not always seen eye to eye, but I thought perhaps we could talk, like adults, have a civilized conversation, that perhaps this shared loss would have helped.” Jo swallowed the sting of bile against her throat. “He was my brother too, not just your husband. It wouldn’t take very long—”
“This is my house now.” Lines formed along Allie’s top lip. “I think you should go.”
Jo was so close, she could almost taste it. She wouldn’t fall at this insignificant hurdle. “I promise it won’t take long. Minutes—”
“You heard her.” Steve straightened.
Jo stood up abruptly, her knees threatening to give way at any moment. She steepled her fingertips against the table so she did not topple over. “He was my brother.”
Allie’s chair scraped as she shot to her feet. “You should have been the one who died out there. Luke was a hero. All you do is write lies about people and make money off other people’s misery.”
