Page 39 of Reckoning

Ray and Carrie Springer were in their element. Having their daughter, Mariah, back home was a treat for the aging couple, and they had been lavishing her with shopping sprees and treats.

Mariah and her mother had spent the morning in Savannah and had lunched at the Gryphon Tea Room on Bull Street. It was midafternoon by the time they returned home.

Once Mariah was in her bedroom, she’d checked her phone to see how many calls she’d missed from Roger. When she realized that the last text she’d received had been nearly twenty-four hours ago, and no calls or texts afterward, she frowned. She didn’t want him to lose interest. This had all been an effort to bring him to heel, not to add to the growing distance between them.

Then she shrugged off the thought and got up to change her clothes before going back down to join her parents.

An hour later, they were going through yet another photo album full of images of Mariah’s childhood accomplishments and reliving the year she won Little Miss Savannah and rode on a float in a Mardi Gras parade when Ray’s cell phone rang.

He glanced down, saw his son-in-law’s caller ID, and put it on speaker as he answered. “Roger! Good to hear from you. Sorry you were at your convention and unable to come visit with Mariah.”

“I wasn’t at a convention. As usual, Mariah lied. We are having personal issues. This time, she packed a bag and left without giving us any assurances that she was even coming back. I’ve been calling her for days, but she refuses to respond.”

The moment Mariah heard Roger’s voice, she winced. She should have answered him and avoided this, and now he was airing their dirty laundry in front of her parents.

Ray frowned. “Well, I’ll say. That’s certainly not the impression she left us with. So is Briar still at camp?”

“Briar didn’t go to camp. She’s been at home with me, and please put this call on speaker, because I don’t intend to repeat it,” Roger said.

“It already is,” Ray said.

Mariah’s heart sank. “Wait! I’ll take it in the other room!”

Roger heard her. “Too late, Mariah. I’m not calling to ask if you’re coming home. I want to know why the hell you locked the door to the basement and took the extra keys when you left.”

“Why…I don’t know what—”

Roger roared. “Don’t start with the lies, woman! Just answer me!”

She rolled her eyes and gave her parents a long-suffering look, but they were silent. Clearly waiting for the answer too. “I just wanted to make sure that our daughter did not bring that disreputable boy into our house while I was gone and get into my wine. You know that’s where we store it.”

Roger groaned. “According to Briar, Tate Bandy wouldn’t willingly set foot in this house for any reason because of you. In his mind, it’s where the woman lives who nearly killed his mother.”

Carrie Springer stared at her daughter in disbelief. “You nearly killed a woman?”

Mariah was stuttering, trying to belittle the accusation. “That was years and years ago, and it was a simple altercation that got out of hand.”

“That’s only part of it,” Roger shouted. “While you were worrying about your wine, you nearly got our daughter killed. A tornado hit Star Ridge today. Briar was trying to get down into the basement, and the door was locked and the extra keys were gone. She was in the kitchen looking for the extra key when a tree came flying into the kitchen, burying her under limbs and glass, not to mention the rain, wind, and hail then coming into the house. If it hadn’t been for that boy and his ability to see into the future, she might have died. He drove into the storm to get to her and wound up severely injured from flying debris to save her. They rode out the storm in his family’s storm shelter, with him passed out from lack of blood. Now he’s in the hospital, unconscious, suffering blood loss and only God knows what else.”

Mariah was horrified, and then started wailing and weeping, and covered her face with her hands. “I didn’t mean… I would never want to hurt…”

“Just shut it, Mariah. We heard that excuse before…when you assaulted his mother when the kids were in first grade. Tate saw it happening before you attacked her, and Briar witnessed it when you did. They both saw Lilith Bandy lying unconscious on the sidewalk, with a pool of blood spreading out beneath her head. The bruise on her jaw was the size of a baseball. You spent a week in jail and then spent a year on parole afterward. You are a spoiled brat, who cares nothing for anyone but herself.”

Ray heard the pain in Roger’s voice and was sorry for what they were going through. “Where are you, son?

“I was on my way to Savannah to see Mariah when Briar called. I am already on the way home. I just hope I can get to her. God only knows what kind of damage I’ll be returning to.”

“Wait, Roger! Wait! I’ll come with you,” Mariah cried.

“Right now, I’d be hard-pressed to even throw you a life raft if you were drowning. I don’t want you there. I don’t want to look at your face. And Briar just coldly informed me that whatever trust she had in us blew away with the storm, and that it had been made clear to her that whatever was in that basement was more important to us than her safety.”

Ray and Carrie stared at each other, and then they turned and stared at their daughter as if she was a stranger.

“Let me talk to him,” Mariah cried, and held out her hand.

Ray frowned. “He already ended the call, and it seems to me that there’s not a lot left to discuss. I think you need to pack your things and go home. You have shocked us, and disappointed us in ways I cannot describe. You have things to tend to. Go home and tend to them. Win or lose, this appears to all be on you to work out.”

Mariah let loose a fresh set of tears. “Mom. Mommy. Please let me explain.”