Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(113)
I watch as the blood drains from Reese’s face, until her normally pink cheeks are stark white, making her caramel eyes look a sickly yellow. “Well, where is he?” It comes out in a snap, though I know what sounds like anger is actually fear. Her attention darts to the stack of envelopes in my hand. One of them has a stamp of “Return to sender” on it. The others were never even mailed.
I slide the first one into her shaking hand.
Clearing her throat, she slowly lifts the seal. “These were opened already.” The accusation in her tone is thick. “Did you read these?”
“No.” Mason admitted that he and Jack had read them first, not wanting to just hand something over to Reese that could devastate her.
With a deep breath, she pulls out the first letter, a single lined sheet of paper with similar but slightly neater handwriting than Reese’s.
There’s not much else I can do, so I just sit quietly next to her, feeding her a new envelope every time she finishes the last.
Watching the tears start rolling down her cheeks.
And when I hand her the yellow one, the one holding a copy of the official report inside, the telltale stamp on the front, she turns perfectly still.
Her voice is raspy as she whispers, “After all this time, I’m really just like her, aren’t I?”
Chapter 37
REESE
Ben’s Jetta pulls up to the ostentatious white house straight out of Greek mythology, its row of columns and the enormous three-tier water fountain in the center of the circular driveway plain ridiculous. Husband Number Four comes from money and loads of it.
“Well, this looks cozy,” Ben observes with a smirk.
“Wait until you see the inside,” I mutter. “It looks like a morgue.” Thanks to the sprawling layout and lack of furniture, it’s also the ideal house for a lavish charity ball.
The car door opens and the valet offers me a hand that I accept only after scooping up the layers of my satin dress. Lina and Mason drove up to the grove this morning with it, so I’d have time to get ready before heading to Jacksonville. Thankfully, it fits as well as if it were custom-designed to my body. Based on the price tag I found in the box, it may as well have been.
Ben comes around the car—looking every bit like a Ken doll in a sharp black pearl tux that he rented last minute—and offers me an arm. If we were here under different circumstances, I’d probably already be scouting out locations to drag him off to by his tie, he looks so appealing. “When did you see your mother last?” he asks, taking the steps in unison with me, slowly. Warily.
“Right after I married Jared. Number Four wanted a big mending-fences family brunch.”
“So, what, like . . .”
“A year and a half ago.”
He shakes his head in disbelief. “And how’d that go?”
“Terrific. Annabelle told me I didn’t have what it took to keep Jared interested and he’d leave me.”
And now I think I know why.
Ben speaks to the man with the guest list while my eyes roam over the crowd of finely dressed people of all ages. He’s been doting on me since yesterday afternoon, while keeping my mind occupied and cracking stupid jokes to try and make me laugh. Odd, given we just put his dad in the ground. It should be the other way around.
We step into a buzz of music and conversation and laughter—both fake and genuine. The beautiful O’Hara staircase reaching the second floor is closed to guests and lined with a small orchestra of violinists, playing soft classical music while a photographer captures them. Servers in tuxes float through the crowd, balancing silver platters of appetizers and champagne with ease.
I can’t help but think that all the money that went into this party could have been better served going straight to the charity. This is Annabelle at her finest.
I never enjoyed these pretentious parties, preferring one of Jack’s summer backyard barbeques where I could show up in jeans and a T-shirt. Then again, the look on Ben’s face when I descended Wilma’s stairs in a dress that cost half the price of my Harley makes it worth it.
Ben stops a server with a hand on her elbow and his winning smile. “Excuse me, can you please tell us where Mrs. Donnelly is?” That’s Annabelle’s latest last name. It’s getting hard to keep track of them.
The young woman blushes as she looks up at him. “Entertaining in the conservatoire.”
Ben shoots a questioning look my way.
I respond with an eye roll and a quiet hiss of, “It’s a greenhouse with a piano in it.” I think I catch a smirk from the server as she continues on, but I can’t be quite sure.
We find our way to the “conservatoire”—an enormous glass room in the back of the house, overlooking an Olympic-sized pool. Though it’s minimally furnished on normal occasions, tonight it has been cleared of everything except a black grand piano and the stench of old money. That’s where I find Annabelle, amidst a small circle of supremely polished people. She looks as poised and radiant as always in a long, fitted royal-blue dress that pools around her ankles, her pale skin appearing all the more milky-white next to the vibrant color.
Ben offers my waist a little squeeze and prods me forward. I fight the urge to touch my hair—an understated but elegant side bun that Elsie did for me, showing off the black-cherry layer as I make my way forward.