Don't Look Back

“My friends are ass**les.”

“Samantha!” she exclaimed, staring at me as if I’d brandished a knife.

I fought a smile. “It’s true. And you can forget about me patching things up with them, too.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.” She finished off her glass and smiled. It didn’t crack the cool beauty of her face. “You always had a tendency to do that.”

“They’re calling me Insanity Sam and insinuating that I had something to do with what happened to Cassie.” Mom flinched. Maybe I should’ve softened the blow of my social downfall. Too late now. “So, yeah, I’m not exaggerating.”

She opened her mouth but seemed to think twice before speaking. I studied her in this rare moment when she actually appeared to be thinking something instead of drinking and being disappointed with me.

I stiffened.

As soon as the last thought had formed, I felt that wave of familiarity and a surge of distress. At once I knew I’d been in this position before with her. Not wanting her to be disappointed and not knowing how to make that happen or if I even could make it happen.

Stupid tears burned the back of my eyes, and I cast my gaze down. Her free hand was closed in a fist. Her knuckles were white. My throat tightened. “I know you’re disappointed—”

“No, honey, I’m not.” She rose and sat beside me, but I still didn’t look up, because I wasn’t sure if she was lying.

And like a piece of a puzzle clicking together, I suddenly knew her disappointment wasn’t directed just at me, but at herself, too. It was something that I must’ve known before that night on the cliff.

“Honey, I just want the best for you. That’s all.” She paused, brushing a sheet of my hair back from my face. “And you’re heading down a path I’m not sure is going to be best for you. Breaking up with Del, alienating your friends…”

I shook my head. “Those were the right decisions, Mom.”

She hesitated. “And you’ve been hanging out with Carson a lot, haven’t you?”

My head jerked up, and she quickly removed her hand. “So?”

“His father is cleaning your father’s office for extra money, Samantha. Not exactly dating material.”

“Well, I’m not dating his father, now, am I?” I snapped. This whole argument was ridiculous. “I’m not even dating Carson.”

“But you like him.”

“Yes. I do like him, Mom. I don’t get why you have such a problem with that. You married Dad!” Her eyes widened. I had her. “He didn’t have money.”

“Your father was at Yale when I met him. That was different.”

“How so?” I demanded. “He still didn’t have money, and Carson is going to Penn State.”

She didn’t answer immediately, and when she did, it was not what I’d expected. “Your father…he swept me off my feet, Samantha.” A far-off look came to her eyes, and the mask she wore slipped away. I could almost imagine what she must’ve been like when she met my dad. “We met on accident, at a party, and he wasn’t like any guy I was used to. And because of where he went to college, I assumed…well, I assumed he was like me. My father wasn’t happy when the truth came out, and maybe I should’ve…”

Maybe she should’ve listened to her father? Mom didn’t say that, but I knew that was what she was thinking, and I wasn’t sure how to really respond to that.

Taking a small breath, she shook her head. “You deserve someone who can give you the world, someone who can stand on his own. Do you understand me?”

I think I did. “But money doesn’t give you the world, Mom. Not everything.”

She opened her mouth, but a door creaked somewhere in the house. My father’s footsteps were heavy and quick. Mom turned to the door, and the moment he entered, his dark brows furrowed and jaw clenched, I knew this was bad.

“What is it, Steven?” Mom asked, standing, once more cool and aloof as ever.

Dad glanced at her and then me. His hair looked as if he’d run his fingers through it a lot, like it had been the day he walked into the hospital room. “Joanna, I don’t want you to panic. Everything is going to be okay. This is just procedure.”

She folded her thin arms across her chest. “That isn’t a very reassuring opening statement.”

“We need to take Samantha down to the police station,” he said, his gaze darting back to me, and he smiled. My throat dried. “Detective Ramirez has questions, and Lincoln is already there waiting.”

The buzzing in my ears canceled out whatever my mom said. Lincoln was the family lawyer.

I swallowed hard as I stood on weak legs. “Dad,” I croaked.

He was in front of me, clasping my shoulders gently. “It’s okay. They just want to ask you questions.”

“But they’ve already asked me questions, over and over. And they never made me go down there before.” I peered over his shoulder. Mom had drifted off to the side, her fingers pressed against each of her temples.

“I don’t want her going in there alone,” Mom said, surprising me. “I will go—”

“No.” Dad’s shoulders squared. “Stay here. I will handle this.”

“But why do I have to go there?” I asked.

Again, he tried to smile. “Because that’s how they do things by the book, honey. It’s better if we seem as if we have nothing to hide.”

“We don’t have anything to hide.” Before, when Ramirez had been here, my father hadn’t been the least bit willing to discuss anything with the detective. Something had changed.

The interrogation room was nothing like what I’d seen on all the television shows. There wasn’t a one-way glass mirror, just a really small room with four walls devoid of any decorations and a table with three chairs.

Thomas Lincoln, lawyer extraordinaire, sat beside me. Detective Ramirez studied us from across the table. There was a notepad in front of him and a pen he kept twitching in his hand. I couldn’t stop staring at it. In front of my lawyer was the warrant for the search that was taking place right now. Cops were combing the house, messing with my mom’s fine china.

She was probably stroking out right now.

I knew I was close to doing the same, especially when Dad stayed outside the room. He was allowed in, but Lincoln strongly advised against it.

All I could think about were those notes, but they were in my bag, which was with me. How in the world could I explain them if they decided to search that? Oh yeah, I have no idea who’s leaving these notes, but they’re weird, right? Yeah, not good.