Looking for Trouble (Jackson: Girls' Night Out 1)

The drive seemed to take forever, and when she finally skidded to a halt in the gravel yard that fronted the house, her heart fell. The house looked locked up tight. Her dad’s truck was gone. But maybe her brother was locked in his room, trying to hide from her wrath. Best of luck to him, the little shit.

Sophie walked through the silent living room and kitchen and headed straight down the hallway to her brother’s door. She pounded hard on it, hoping he was in there, hoping she would scare him half to death. But there was no gasp of shock and no response. When she tried the knob it was unlocked. Only her anger made her open it. She’d never have invaded his privacy otherwise, and when she saw that he wasn’t in the room, she closed the door immediately. She had too many of her own secrets to tempt fate by poking her nose into others’.

Speaking of... She grimaced and hurried to her own room. She dug through her top dresser drawer until she found a pair of pale pink panties and slipped them on. Even she wasn’t perverted enough to have a family meeting in this state.

Once that little housekeeping task was taken care of, she lost her momentum. She didn’t know what to do. She was standing alone in an empty house with too many feelings whipping through her, and Sophie was suddenly exhausted. Her knees began to shake and she finally gave up and sat down on her bed.

The springs squeaked and slumped under her weight. Amazing how old your childhood bedroom could make you feel. It was strange, because she’d lived here only a year ago, yet it felt like something from her girlhood. Probably because she still had high school pictures on the wall.

“That could have something to do with it,” she muttered before collapsing back on the bed. Dust motes burst up and danced through the slanting rays of sunshine that sneaked past the blinds.

She should’ve transformed this room long before, but she’d somehow never managed it. It was her childhood room, after all. She didn’t plan to stay here permanently. She’d leave it behind. She knew that was true because aside from the photos from high school and a gigantic map of the world, all the other decorations were posters of faraway sights. Sandy deserts and ocean glaciers and African savannas. She’d once collected postcards from friends traveling closer to home, too. Washington, D.C., and New York City and San Francisco. But all those postcards had been cut up and used in scrapbooks.

That was okay. She’d get out there soon. She wouldn’t need scrapbooks or posters or postcards from friends, because she’d travel herself someday. For now, she was patient. Her dad needed her. Clearly, her brother did, too.

Sophie sat up with a sigh, thinking she may as well put dinner in the oven while she was waiting, but she didn’t have the will to stand up. Instead, she just slumped and stared at her dresser and tried not to freak out about her brother. Her eye fell on a new stack of mail and she snagged that and started going through it. All junk. Except one letter.

She froze at the sight of the return address. With everything else going on, she didn’t want to think about this right now. Or at any point.

It had taken the medical examiner’s office quite a while to complete their final examination of the remains. There hadn’t been much to work with, but with the vague possibility of a crime, they’d waited months for clearance from the sheriff’s office.

The clearance had come, her mother’s bones had been sent to a funeral home, and she’d been cremated. Sophie had taken care of all of that. But this part she couldn’t seem to manage. This part she couldn’t make herself do.

When she heard the rumble of an approaching engine, Sophie tucked the letter from the funeral home into a drawer and raced to the living room. A peek out the window revealed her brother and dad getting out of the truck, both of them dusty and sweat-soaked from whatever work they’d been doing.

Shit. She’d really wanted to speak to her brother alone, but she supposed her dad had to find out at some point.

David’s head was down when he walked in, his mouth drawn into a scowl. He always looked like that after being forced to do real work. Sophie wanted to grab him by the hair and shake him just for that damn look.

He glanced at her, then headed straight toward his room, as if he really thought she’d let him walk right past her.

“What the hell did you do?” she asked.

He shrugged one shoulder and tried to brush past. She pushed him. “What did you do?” she yelled.

“Hey!” her dad said, startled by the sudden tension. “What’s going on here?”

“Ask David!”

“Get over it,” he mumbled.

“Are you kidding me? Did you think Dad and I would have nothing to say about this?”

“I didn’t care what you had to say about this. It’s my name on the lawsuit, not yours.”

Her dad’s chin drew in. “Lawsuit? What are you talking about, David?”

Her brother crossed his arms and frowned at her, seemingly unwilling to admit what he’d done.

Fine. She’d do the hard work. She always had. “He filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Bishop estate,” she finally said, the words dry and bitter and sticking to her throat as she said them. Tears rushed to her eyes. This time she couldn’t stop them. “He’s suing the Bishops because this all wasn’t ugly enough without that!”

“David!” their father gasped.

Her brother shrugged again. “What? Whatever happened in that accident was his fault. He was driving. People file lawsuits when that happens. Their insurance will pay for it.”

Greg Heyer had never so much as spanked either one of them, and he rarely lost his temper. Even now, he didn’t. But he did point at his son and shake his head in disgust. “No. People might file lawsuits, but we don’t. She’s been dead for twenty-five years. Let it lie.”

David, face red and hands balling into fists, knocked their father’s hand away. “My mother has been dead for twenty-five years!” he screamed. Sophie’s heart nearly pounded out of her chest. She jumped in front of her dad and shoved her brother back before he could lash out further.