“She knew,” Pops says. “She knew all along. She played you.”
“She didn’t know, but that doesn’t matter. Pops is right though—we’ve been played, intentionally or not.” The words burn in my throat.
“Nataniele!” Nora completes the trek across the room and grabs my arm. “Pops is dead. He doesn’t get a vote in this.”
I blink a few times, wondering how in the world she could say something like that with him standing right here in the room. She doesn’t even look in his direction, and Pops doesn’t address her comment at all. When I look at him, he just grins that maniacal grin of his, and Nora shakes her head at me.
“Pops is dead, Nate. I don’t know why you’re trying to put this on him when clearly you—”
“He’s right there!” I scream, pointing. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you?”
Pops starts laughing.
“That’s…that’s his picture, Nate.” Antony moves slowly to Nora’s side. His posture is protective as he looks at me with confused, cautious eyes. “He’s been gone for months now.”
“Nataniele,” Nora whispers, “we put Pops in the ground in January. You were there. It’s why you had to step up and take over.”
“Wha--?” I can’t comprehend her words even as images flash through my head.
I’m standing over his casket as it’s lowered into the ground. No…no… It’s Micha’s casket. Must be Micha’s. Why is the tombstone for Micha already fixed in the ground, away from the grave? Must be a mistake. A handful of soil drops from my hand, covering the shiny wood surface of the casket. This isn’t Pops. It can’t be. I can’t do this by myself…
“Nate, you feeling okay?” Threes asks, but I barely hear him.
Nora is next to me, her hand on my arm. She’s talking, but I can’t hear the words.
Pops continues to laugh. It’s a cruel, hollow sound that sends a shiver from the nape of my neck all the way to the back of my heels. I open my mouth to say…something…to tell him to speak up; to tell them he’s right there and make them look at him, but he doesn’t. He just stands there, laughing.
The sound becomes hollow and distant as his image begins to fade.
My bones feel as if they’re made of ice. My hands shake and my knees buckle. My vision blurs and then goes dark.
I hear Cherry yelling my name before I hit the floor.
Chapter 19—Confessions
The torment of thoughts and emotions running through my head is overwhelming. I’ve gone from curious to defensive to furious to terrified and then back to furious and defensive—all in a matter of minutes.
All my suspicions have been confirmed, albeit inadvertently. The Orso family is clearly into illegal activities though the exact nature isn’t clear to me yet. One thing is for sure—normal people don’t suddenly walk into a room with some other family’s medical records.
I remember when I was ten, and one of those traveling carnivals came to a nearby town, and I begged Aunt Ginny to let me ride on a huge, rocking boat. I was so excited when it started, but halfway through the ride, I started to feel sick. I begged my aunt to tell the carnival worker to stop the ride, but of course that didn’t happen. There was no way off. Aunt Ginny held me as I puked on the floor of the ride, embarrassed beyond belief. Once the ride had stopped, and my Aunt Ginny helped me off of it, I continued to feel sick. We went home, and I cried the whole way because I had never been to a carnival before, and I didn’t get a chance to try cotton candy or pet the animals at the petting zoo.
I want off this ride.
Nate and Nora are yelling at each other. The looks he is giving me are so hatef
ul, they penetrate my soul, and all I can manage to do is curl up in a ball with tears running down my face as I fight the urge to puke over the back of the couch. I keep trying to tell him that I don’t know what’s he’s talking about, but he just refuses to listen.
I wipe tears from my cheeks, but they just keep coming.
When Threes comes in with a huge stack of hospital records, everything goes from bad to worse. Even though Nate stops looking at me with suspicion, I keep hearing the same thing from all of them: “She’s a Ramsay.”
All this time, I’d been trying to figure out who my real parents were. To discover they were the sworn enemies of Nate’s family was bad enough, but then I find out they are both dead, and a deep sense of loss hits me.
Roland Ramsay.
The name rolls around in my head. Though I’d heard the Ramsay family mentioned several times since moving to Cascade Falls, I’d never heard the name Roland mentioned before. Maybe if I had, it would have struck me sooner. I admit to knowing the name, while my insides feel like they’re turning to liquid and sloshing around in my gut. As the others go over the documentation for the tenth time, I think back to my childhood.
“We have a visitor coming today,” Aunt Ginny told me.