All the Lies We Tell (Quarry Road #1)(46)

Ilya sat up, looking irritated, but then he laughed. “Okay, you caught me. I’m still a really, really big fan of Garfield.”

She moved farther into the room, looking for a chair and finding only the bed to sit on. She took a spot at the foot, laughing self-consciously at the bed’s sudden creaking protest. “Yikes.”

“Right?” He bounced, making it squeak. “What a pain in the ass.”

“Listen, I brought you something. I was going to talk to you and Allie at the same time after dinner, but she’s busy.” Theresa had overheard the soft murmurs of conversation between Allie and Niko in the kitchen but hadn’t wanted to risk walking in on them if they were doing something they didn’t want anyone to see. She slid the thick white envelope, his copy of the offer, across the bed to him. “So I brought this for you. The two of you can talk about it together and get back to me.”

He shifted closer to take the envelope. “What is it?”

“It’s an offer. To buy the quarry. And Go Deep.” Theresa cleared her throat. “I work with Diamond Development Corporation. They want to put in a hotel with a water park and make some improvements—”

“Allie knew about this?”

“I gave her the official offer a couple days ago. Yes.” Theresa nodded. “That’s part of what I’ve been doing here in town—”

“Talking to Allie behind my back?” Ilya stood and tossed the envelope onto the bed toward her. “What are you doing, ganging up on me? What the hell, Theresa?”

She frowned and gathered the loose papers that had started to come out of the envelope. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“My grandmother died,” Ilya said through clenched jaws. “She’s dead, Theresa. And you’re using that as a way to get me to agree to get bought out by some bunch of corporate pricks who want to rip apart everything I’ve built and turn it into some . . . what, some kind of amusement park?”

“It wasn’t like that!”

His fists clenched at his sides. “No? Pretty convenient that you showed up just in time, huh?”

“I came to pay my respects, and I would have done that, anyway,” Theresa said. “I told you, I make connections—”

“And you just happened to be making this one?”

She paused to swallow hard, keeping her voice neutral so it didn’t shake. The truth was she hadn’t planned any of this to take advantage of his grief, but of course she had taken advantage of the information he’d given her when he didn’t realize what, exactly, he was revealing. He’d told her Go Deep was struggling. It hadn’t been hard at all to look up the records to find out how much.

“It was . . . it just worked out that way.”

“They sent you after me? Figured you had an in or something, because you knew me?”

For a moment, the truth rose to her lips. That she’d put this together on her own because it had looked like the way out of a very deep and very dark pit she was in. What came out instead was not the truth.

“I’m only doing my job, Ilya.”

“I’m not interested in selling. I told the last guy that.”

“I’m not aware of any previous offers, and this doesn’t have anything to do with that.”

“I’m not interested.”

Theresa’s chin went up. Her shoulders straightened. “It’s not only your decision, is it? Allie has a say, too.”

“So,” he said in a cold, flat voice, “why don’t you go on and talk to her about it? For now, get the hell out of my room. Go enjoy sleeping down the hall, unless now that you’ve figured out I’m not going to give you what you want, you have no reason to hang around here anymore.”

He would not be sympathetic to her situation; she was not going to tell him that she had no other place to go right now. Instead, she gathered up the papers and left, closing the door behind her.

In the room that had been Babulya’s, she looked at the small weekend bag holding her clothes, some toiletries, a few other odds and ends. Her phone lit up from where she had set it to charge on the nightstand. The message was from Wayne.

Figures, she thought as she thumbed the phone screen to read what her ex-boyfriend had to say. It was a deadline for her to get her stuff out of his garage. Terrific.

She was so screwed.





CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO


Then


Jennilynn hadn’t come home last night.

She was supposed to be home by eleven, but Mom and Dad had gone to bed around ten. Alicia was the only one who’d waited up, listening for the sound of a car in the drive or the front door opening. Jennilynn had been out after curfew before. Sneaking in through the window, giggling and hissing at Alicia to be quiet even though she was the one making all the noise. The stink of beer and smoke on her clothes. She’d come home late, but at least she’d always come home.

“Girls!” her mother hollered down the hall. “C’mon, you need to get up or you’re going to be late for school!”

The very last thing in the world Alicia felt like doing was getting out of bed. She’d stayed up for hours last night, first angry because she knew, just knew, that the second she fell asleep, her sister would be stumbling into the room, waking her up. Then later, about three in the morning, the anger had turned to anxiety. Alicia had tossed and turned, sleeping fitfully.