Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

“Mentions. Not much. He’s shared about his life. Talks about his grandfather more, but not much about her. Or he says shit, but not about how he felt about her. She was just the woman who gave birth to him who he had to put up with until he left.”

This was the same thing he gave me after he’d explained some things that day stuff exploded between Sasha and me.

“I’ve met her though,” Rix remarked.

I stopped dead.

Rix stopped with me.

“You have?”

He nodded.

But his expression was dark.

“She’d come to Prescott. Judge would pay for her to do it. Obligation. She’d be on about healing breaches and talking things through. What she really wanted was money. He was gone, she was fucked. No more child support and the granddad stopped propping her up.”

That startled me.

“Propping her up?”

He jutted his chin. “Yup. She pissed away any money she could get her hands on. Settlement went up in smoke on the legal battles. Child support was gone before she even got it with dealers she owed money to and tabs she had at bars. She’d remortgage the house, it’d go into arrears. Once Jamie got sick of doing it, probably in hopes she’d be evicted and he could pounce on Judge, AJ stepped in, so she wouldn’t be evicted, and Judge wouldn’t go anywhere.”

Rix stopped talking.

I didn’t start walking.

“Babe?” he called.

“Just a second.”

“Woman,” he got closer, “you can’t blow a gasket when our boy in there is going for an Academy Award with his performance.”

“I’m not going to blow a gasket.”

“Your hair is about to catch fire.”

“Don’t be dramatic, Rix,” I scoffed.

“The temperature of the entire state of Texas just amped up fifteen degrees because of your attitude. Lock it down.”

I rolled my eyes.

But his gambit was well played.

He amused me enough, I didn’t “blow a gasket.”

It was close, though.

“Let’s just get this done,” I murmured.

Rix again jerked up his chin in assent and walked by my side.

However, we both reared back in unison several feet from the opened front door.

The smell wafting out was unspeakable.

“How long was she dead before they found her?” I asked in horror.

“That isn’t dead body smell,” Rix said, taking my hand, clearly for fortification purposes. “That’s not cleaning your house for fifteen years smell.”

I wanted to know, but at this moment didn’t ask how he knew what dead body smelled like.

“Was she a hoarder?” I whispered as we inched forward.

“No clue.”

With trepidation, we walked in.

The good news, Belinda Oakley was not a hoarder.

The bad news, Rix’s estimate on when this house was last cleaned was off substantially.

By about a decade.

It was clear she drank.

And smoked.

Not only marijuana, but cigarettes.

A lot of them.

Overflowing ashtrays were everywhere, ash and butts spilling out on surfaces and on the floor. There was a thick layer of dust you couldn’t only see, you could see how thick it was because there were swipes, fingerprints and smears wherever someone had touched.

Everything had a brown/gray pall on it, likely from the smoke, but also simply dust, dirt and grime.

The cigarette odor mingled with a pot scent and that loitered with spilled booze and lingering vomit smell. This wrapped around the overall aroma of neglect, spoiled food and rotten milk.

I had a highly honed sense of smell.

It took everything not to gag.

Judge and Jamie both stood in the midst of it all, tall and straight—so very obviously father and son it was uncanny (also quite adorable)—staring around the place.

It took effort, but as I glanced around, I peeled back layers and years.

As laid testimony outside with this decrepit but still expansive family home, at one time, the bones of the house, including the furniture and blinds, had been stylish and attractive. The walls might once have been a soft peach. There were pops of color in what could once have been cobalt blue and shamrock green armchairs. A now faded, perhaps once vibrant red couch. There were pieces that were Nordic, solid, good quality, Scandinavian design.

'90s chic.

But it was all now worn, stained, nicked, or just plain grimy.

I peered through the large living room into a massive kitchen that was open to the space but had been cut off by overhead cabinets that would, to any design-scheme-minded person in the early aughts, have been removed to create a true great room.

And I saw that the kitchen was an absolute pigsty. I could barely look at it, it was in such a state.

I wanted to move no further into this hellhole.

I actually wanted to grab my boyfriend and walk right out.

On these thoughts, my gaze fell on some windows at the back. Through the yellow tinge staining the glass, I saw a pool that was undoubtedly a health hazard. It hadn’t seen chlorine or a pH test in at least a decade. In fact, it had so been taken over by weeds, scum and rainwater, it could be described as a pond.