Page 100 of Play Dirty

“Super weird.” She laughs. “But… you guys have always been weird. So not that unusual. Oh, and before I forget. Finn and Darrel came by yesterday and I sent them home. Your mother was already in control. So you should probably call them and let them know the game is over.”

I just stare at her. Blink. Say nothing.

“Jordan?”

“Yes?”

“Do you need some help to your car?”

I shake my head. “No. Thanks. I got it.”

“OK,” she says, walking around the dollie. “I’m gonna miss you. Maybe you’ll come by your mom’s office some time and visit?”

“Sure,” I say, even though I have no idea where that office is.

And then she’s gone. And I’m left alone in my office with a dollie stacked with boxes.

I pack up my car, head over to the mortuary, and spend the next five hours dealing with the details of death. And then I go back to Chella’s house.

Because I feel like there’s no place in this world I belong but there.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I attend the funeral out of obligation and feel like a hypocrite doing so. It’s raining at the gravesite. Coming down in sheets, and we—my mother and me, the only family there—are sitting under a small hastily erected black canopy as the ceremony drags on.

Everyone else is huddled under large black umbrellas and it kinda pisses me off. That he gets a horrendous thunderstorm as the backdrop to his farewell. Something so dramatic should be reserved for people you’re truly sad to see die.

I’m not sad and I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think my mother is either.

We stay there, sitting in our chairs, until everyone else has left. My mother reaches for my hand and says, “Your friend came to see me the day after you left the house that night.”

I turn in my chair, the rain pelting the roof of the canopy so hard, it makes her hard to hear. “Ixion?” I ask.

“No. Chella.”

Chella. “Why?”

“She was worried about you. And she told me some things. Things I had already found out about because when you left that night, you forgot to take your folder of evidence with you.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I didn’t know, Jordan. But I should’ve suspected. Because when you came back from LA and joined the firm, I decided to get my real-estate license. And I did that so one day, when my nightmare was over, I’d have something of my own to fall back on. Oh, we’re filthy rich, but all that money was his, not mine. And before you say it’s half mine too, I don’t want it. I don’t even need it. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

“You sent me that listing last year, didn’t you? For the garden mansion.”

She presses her lips together. “I knew who she was. I suspected what had happened to her. And I couldn’t let him sweep it all away by letting the house be sold in foreclosure. There was too much anger inside me last year. So I sent it to you and hoped. And you, for whatever reason, heard my prayer to keep their story alive, and bought it.”

“I don’t even know why, though. Why did I buy it?”

“Because somewhere inside you, you knew too.”

“I didn’t. I blocked it all out.”

“I didn’t know who she was, I just knew of her. I knew she got pregnant, that her oldest was your half-brother, and that she married another man and moved on. I forgave her because she was very young and very young people do very young things.”

“She was the one who came to me in the cabin,” I say.

“I know. I figured that out from your file. And I’m so, so, so sorry I wasn’t there for you when that happened. I truly had no idea. If I had…” She shakes her head. “I’d have done this sooner.”