Paranoid(19)

She clicked off the newspaper app. Told herself she just had to get through the rest of the day and the damned meeting tonight, and things could go back to normal. Or as normal as they had been.

Wait a second.

She clicked onto the article again and noticed a note at the bottom.

Part 1 of a 4-part series.

“What? No. No . . . no.” Then, as if her friend were in the room with her, she whispered, “God, Mercedes, why?”

Because she’s not your friend. Face it, Rachel, she never has been.

Mercy had to have known how dredging up Luke’s death would impact Rachel and her family. How everything had changed that night. Everything. Rachel’s fractured family had completely shattered, and her friends, the kids she’d hung out with at school, had all avoided her during the last few weeks before graduation. And who could blame them? She’d been shell-shocked, convinced she’d murdered her brother. Charged with the crime.

She wondered how her mother was dealing with this article, and her dad, what did he think? Neither had been quoted in the paper. Only Nate Moretti and Lila Ryder. Nate had said, “It’s still hard, you know. Luke was my best friend, and yeah, I was there but I don’t know how it happened.” Lila’s quote was a little more dramatic: “I miss him every day. Luke’s the father of my son, Lucas, who is Luke’s namesake, but it’s been hard on me, and hard on my boy, of course, never knowing his real dad.”

Tears burned the back of Rachel’s eyes but she fought them back. What was it her mother had always said? “No use crying over spilled milk.” But in this case buckets of tears had been spilled. In the days after Luke’s death, they’d all cried.

Mom.

Had she read this? Oh. God.

It will never be over, she thought as she slid her phone from her pocket and poked her mother’s number from her list of favorites.

Melinda picked up on the second ring. “Hi,” she said, obviously knowing Rachel was calling. But her voice had no life.

Damn it.

“Hey, Mom.”

“I saw it. That’s what you’re calling about. Right? The article in the paper or the fact that it’s the . . .” She let her voice fade, but they both knew she was mentioning the date.

“Yeah. I wanted to know that you’re okay.”

A beat. Then, “Well . . .”

What to say? “It’s tough.”

“Yes. That it is. That it is . . . for all of us. For you, too,” she said. “And, I suppose, your father.”

“Yes,” Rachel agreed and noted, once again, her mother never spoke of Ned Gaston by his name. That would probably never change. They tolerated each other . . . barely—standing together at Rachel’s wedding not speaking, avoiding each other at the reception, and, over the years, when they were forced to be in the same room, avoiding conversation, pretending the other didn’t exist.

They acted like polite strangers.

Ridiculous.

“Are you . . . are you going to the cemetery?” Rachel asked.

A pause. “Yes.”

Stupid question. “Want company?”

“You’re going?”

No, I hadn’t thought I was, but . . . “Yeah.” She glanced at the clock and mentally calculated her day, what she needed to get done before she picked up the kids from school. “I’d guess before noon.”

“Maybe I’ll see you then. I’m not sure. I . . . I just don’t know how my day is going to go.”

Rebuffed. Quietly. “Oh. Okay.” Rachel wasn’t going to push it.

The conversation waned, and after promising to visit with the kids “soon,” Melinda ended the call.

Rachel thought about her mother. Tall and slim, with even features, once-vibrant hair she kept shoulder length, and brown eyes that seemed to know too much, Melinda had been a loving mother all those years ago. Back then she always had a quick smile and a wink whenever Rachel had caught her sneaking a cigarette. “Don’t tell Dad,” she’d warned, but had laughed because at that point in time Ned Gaston had been hopelessly in love with her . . . but that had been long ago, before the marriage had cracked and long before her only son had been taken from her, shot dead by— “Oh, stop it!” Rachel yelled aloud, and Reno, who had settled onto his bed near the back door, gave out a sharp bark. God, what was wrong with her? “Yeah. Sorry.” So now she was apologizing to the dog? God, Rach, you are really losing it. Try to treat today just like so many others, will you?

But as she stared at the coffee stains all over the bills and junk mail, she knew she was kidding herself.





CHAPTER 6


Rachel wasn’t home.

Her car wasn’t parked in the garage and she didn’t answer the door.

Cade didn’t think twice, just pulled his key ring from his pocket, inserted the house key he’d used for years, and stepped through the front door and into the house he’d once called home. “Rachel?” he called, passing through the living area with the attached dining room to the kitchen, where her tablet and cell phone were charging on the table.

No wonder she hadn’t answered.

He tried again. “Rach? It’s me.”

She’d be pissed as hell to find him inside what she considered her turf, the house he’d given her in the divorce. No strings attached. No clause in the decree declaring that she had to sell when the kids were in college, no lien against any equity. Nope. He’d figured she deserved it.