Page 93 of Wicked Promises
She groans, but she leans into me. I hold her close. My chest fills with something light, because we’re actually doing this together. A place I didn’t think either of us would get to.
“You should talk to him,” Eli suggests.
She straightens. “The last time I talked to him, I?—”
“We’ll go with you. In two cars.”
Her attention flips to my face. “What do you think?”
“I…” Fuck, I don’t know. Am I ready to see her dad again? To get answers? To judge for myself if he’s lying or not? “Yeah, we should.”
Liam pulls out his phone. “Visiting hours tomorrow are in the afternoon.”
I run my hand over my face. “I’ve skipped so much damn school. What’s another day?”
“I’ll be at the school in the morning,” Margo says quietly. “To determine when I’m coming back.”
“We only have two weeks left until Christmas break,” Liam points out. “They should just let you work from home.”
“That’s a rich kid treatment,” she mumbles.
“If that’s the sorry excuse they give you, they’ll have to deal with Lenora. And then me.” I crack a smile. “She’s fierce when she needs to be.”
Margo laughs.
It brings the whole mood up a few degrees.
“Food’s here!” Mrs. Black calls from the top of the stairs. “How much did you guys order? My God.”
“We’re growing boys, Mom,” Eli hollers back. We all stand. To us, he says, “At least we figured some things out, yeah? A game plan.”
“Visit Margo’s dad,” I repeat. “That’s… not much of a plan.”
Not to mention, the idea of seeing him again—even if he’s innocent—makes me feel week inside. After all those years of conditioning by Uncle David, it’s hard to shake the disgust. And the blame. But now, along with it, comes guilt.
“Worst comes to worst, you know where to find your mom.” Liam shrugs. “And apparently, she’s with Margo’s mom. Isn’t that a bit fishy? Shouldn’t those two hate each other?”
“Mom looked semi-decent,” Margo says. “Which… was surprising. Like she wasn’t using anymore, you know? I haven’t seen her clean…”
“She might be clean, but… let’s not count on that, okay?” I lead them upstairs.
I think back to meeting my mother outside the diner only a few weeks ago. I asked her where Amber was, and I’m pretty sure she lied right to my face.
Shame, Rose Hill isn’t good for that woman.
I curse to myself. We weren’tinRose Hill. Lucky’s Diner sat proudly just over the town line, in Beacon, which made Mom’s answer notquitea lie. She knew. Margo’s mom was probably inside the diner as we spoke, making me the biggest fool on the face of the planet.
“I’m curious if you saw your life going in this direction from the beginning,” I said. “I’m mostly curious about why you let your brother-in-law run the show?”
“Your father wants it that way.”
Wants, like he was still around.
But then again, his memory was a pungent one, and the will left no wiggle room.
Could my mother have had something to do with it? She seemed more surprised than anything that the will had been changed. But if it was something that was done because she cheated on him, he wouldn’t tell her.
Money is a good motive, Liam said it himself.