Caged (Mastered, #4)(26)

Get a handle on your sorrow, girl, and get a move on. There’ll be plenty of time for crying later.

Hearing Grams’s voice gave her the push she needed. She dragged herself into the bathroom. Splashing cold water on her face helped the blotchiness but did little to reduce the swelling in her eyes. She swept her toiletries into a travel bag. As she stared at her closet, she couldn’t decide what to bring. Annoyed with her indecision, she pulled random clothes off hangers and dropped them into the suitcase at her feet.


Packed, she rolled her suitcase into the living room. She snagged the cords for her various electronics and shoved them into the outside pocket of the suitcase.

Now what?

Let people know she’d be gone. She’d text Amery and Presley in the morning. No reason to freak them out now. Her finger hovered over Deacon’s name. Should she call him? He hadn’t left here long ago. He’d probably still be up.

And what will you say to him? When you don’t even know what’s going on?

Good point. Besides, he’d warned her that he didn’t do family shit. And her family shit was about to get real shitty, real fast.

Car loaded, gas tank full, a six-pack of Red Bull on the passenger’s seat, Molly pulled onto I-80 going east. She’d be in her Nebraska hometown in roughly eight hours.

During the long-ass hours in the car, she wondered if this was the last time she’d ever make this drive. With her grams gone, she’d have no reason to go back.





CHAPTER EIGHT



THE last thirty hours seemed like a bad dream.

The only bright spot was her grandma had come to for a few minutes.

“You’re here, sweet girl.”

“Don’t I always turn up when you least expect it?”

“Yes.” A long pause. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” Molly rubbed her thumb across her grandmother’s hand, the paper-thin skin a bluish white, not the chafed red she knew so well. “I love you, Grams.”

“You’re a good girl, Molly.”

That was their last conversation.

She’d felt her grandma fading further away. She and Uncle Bob stayed by her side in silence, until she slipped her earthly bonds, freed from pain.

Molly shook herself and fished out her house key as she started up the sidewalk to the farmhouse she’d grown up in. Flowers bloomed in pots on the porch. The rug from the kitchen hung over the railing. The place had the aura of waiting for the owner to return.

The front door stuck, forcing her to throw her shoulder into it. After it opened, she decided to leave it open, and entered the house. Immediately, a lifetime of familiar scents engulfed her. The persistent mustiness. The faint aroma of coffee. The pungent scent of Spic and Span cleaner.

She didn’t venture very far into the house. Just to the window that overlooked the garden. She must’ve been lost in thought, because she didn’t hear them come in.

“We were surprised you could tear yourself away from the all-you-can-eat buffets in Denver to come back here,” Jennifer sneered.

Molly schooled her features before she faced her cousins. “I should be grateful you held your tongues while we were at the hospital. I’m guessing your stab at civility is over?”

Jennifer and Brandi exchanged confused looks.

They weren’t the sharpest pencils in the drawer. “Is Uncle Bob with you?”

“No. He’s meeting with the funeral director.”

“Alone? Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Because he told us to look after you.”

Great.

“You had one of those stomach-shrinking surgeries, didn’t you?” Jennifer said.

“That’s what you want to talk about?”

“She’s not denying it,” Brandi pointed out.

Molly closed her eyes and counted to five. “Can you please, for once, act like adults?”

“Excellent suggestion.”

They were all surprised by Reverend Somers’s sudden appearance.

“As a neutral party, I’ll ask you all to refrain from bickering. Keep your past petty grievances private. Hold it together for your grandmother’s memory.”

Jennifer placed her hand on the reverend’s arm. “Of course we will. We loved Grams. We’d never disrespect her. It’s just easy to fall into those old habits. Isn’t it, Molly?”

Easier for some of us—namely you. “Reverend, why are you here?”

He sent Molly an apologetic look. “With all you’ve been through . . . I’m sorry to say that you’ll have to stay elsewhere. Torch Robbins, your grandmother’s attorney, has documentation requiring the house be locked up until the will is read.”

Now she had to shell out money to stay at a motel? Fantastic. Molly looked at the notebook the reverend held. “I assume you have the official documentation?”

“Molly! What is wrong with you?” Brandi pushed into Molly’s personal space. “We have no reason to question what the reverend tells us.”

“You’ve been living in the big city too long,” Jennifer retorted. “We trust our friends and neighbors around here.”

“Which is good and well, but we all know break-ins occur as soon as word gets around there’s been a death and a house sits empty.” Not to mention she wouldn’t put it past her cousins to keep her out of the way so they could go through the house, picking the items of value.