“What detective?” I finally ask, looking around to see if I see anything out of place. It happens in slow motion, or at least it feels like that. She turns around, and now that she is so close, I can smell her again. I can see the little freckles on her nose.
“This doesn’t concern you,” she says. “Nothing about me or my life concerns you.” I swear it’s like she slaps me in the face, and I take a step back and watch her walk out of the store.
“I can’t believe she is back to bring all this havoc to everyone,” my mother says, but I look down at my hand that touched her, ignoring the tingling I feel. “Eight years and she just waltzes back into town.”
“Mom.” I say her name, and she looks at me. “That’s enough.” I look around, and everyone looks away, pretending that they just didn’t watch the shitshow that went downhill. “Let’s go, Mom.”
She just nods, and we leave the basket in the middle of the store and walk out to my truck. My head is spinning. Why is a detective calling her? Why was the blonde shaking like a leaf? Why the fuck did Kallie really come home? I get in the truck and make my way back to my mother’s house, neither of us saying anything. Pulling into her driveway, I turn off the truck. She reaches to the handle of the truck, and I finally say something. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that life was finally good,” she tells me. “People were finally forgetting about what happened.”
“You think what you did in there helped anything at all?” I ask, and she looks down. “She was your best friend.”
“And now she isn’t.” She wipes away a tear. “I have you, and I have my grandson.”
“Mom.” She looks up at me. “Don’t do that again.”
“Jacob, you can’t be serious.” She shakes her head. “You still love her.”
“As much as I hate her,” I say, looking out my window at the house I grew up in, “a piece of me will always love her.” I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Can you get Ethan for me?”
“Of course,” she says. “Why don’t you do what you need to do and then come have dinner here?”
I nod, and she gets out of the truck. I pull out, and my car makes its way to Kallie’s house. I’m just doing my job, I tell myself. I’m just keeping my town safe. My stomach is in my throat the whole time I’m on my way there.
Pulling into the driveway, I ignore all the memories that come crashing back. I block them out just as fast as they came in, and when I get out of the truck, the crunch of the rocks under my feet alerts them I’m here. I ring the bell and brace myself for what is to come.
When I hear the locks turn, I wait for it, and I’m not surprised when I see Casey with his shotgun in his hand. I know he’d love nothing more than to shoot me in the ass, but he wouldn’t answer the door with it in his hand. Something is definitely going on.
“Not today,” he says, and he tries to shut the door, but my hand comes out, and I block it from slamming.
He shakes his head and turns around, letting me walk into the house. His father stands there, leering at me with his own shotgun, and I have to think maybe coming into the enemy playpen was not the smartest idea I’ve ever had. “What the hell is going on?” I say, looking from Casey to Billy, and then I make the mistake of looking on the couch and seeing the blonde with tears running down her face. Kallie sits next to the blonde with her own tears in her eyes, and she looks away, wiping a tear away.
“It’s not your concern,” Casey says, and I shake my head. “Nothing that happens in this family is your concern.”
“Casey,” Billy says softly.
“You might not like me,” I say, “but I don’t like you either, so the feeling is mutual.”
“Well, at least we agree on something,” Casey says, smirking.
“What concerns me is what happens in my town,” I say. “So if this”—I motion with my finger to the girls on the couch—“is bringing shit into my town, I need to know about it.”
“We have it covered,” Casey is fast to say, and then I look at Billy.
“He does have a point,” Billy says, and now Kallie shoots off the couch.
“NO!” she shouts. She looks at me, and her tears are gone, and anger is there with something else. “I’m not having him do anything for me. We are going to leave.” She looks at Olivia who looks at her and then at Casey.