Gravely is getting impatient, his jaw working, his fingers tap-tapping. I smile at him, and from the way he flinches I think it must be my real smile, mean and crooked. I lean across the table, shoulders screaming in their sockets. “Go fish, asshole.”
The change comes quick: Gravely’s genial good-old-boy act disappears. His hands go still, upper lip peeling away from his teeth. “God, you’re just like her. Leon spoiled her rotten, gave her every little thing she wanted, and it wasn’t enough.” It was never enough, for Mom. She was all hunger, all want, insatiable. I’ve always hated her for that appetite, just a little, but now I feel a strange sympathy. It turns out I’m hungry, too.
Gravely’s face is turning a blotchy mauve. “She goes and gets herself knocked up—insists on keeping it, refuses to marry the man—shames the Gravely name—” His sentences are fragmenting, cracking under the weight of a twenty-six-year-old grudge. “And then still, after all those years, after everything she did, Leon was going to give it all to her. She didn’t work for it, she didn’t deserve it—I was the one who—”
“Give what to her?” My voice is cool, not loud. There’s no reason it should leave a ringing silence in its wake. Gravely shrivels again, turtle-like, and Baine looks like she’s preventing herself from rolling her eyes only through years of elite training.
Gravely is breathing hard, almost panting. “Doesn’t matter now. I burned the will myself, and your mama drove into the river before she knew what was coming.”
“She knew.” The words taste true. You’ll see, Mom told me. She told Bev she was going to make things right, and I think she meant it. I think she was going to bend that stubborn spine of hers and claim the inheritance her daddy offered, and buy us a better future.
But dreams don’t last long in Eden. The mist rose high, the wheels left the road, and by the time Constable Mayhew bought me that Happy Meal, my future was gone.
Stolen, by this stone-eyed bastard.
A surge of fury puts me on my feet. “You—”
“Enough.” Baine’s voice is cool, a little bored. “The past is over, and you can’t prove anything, can you?”
I open my mouth, then close it. The only evidence I had was my mom’s number written on a dead man’s receipt, her picture in the family photo album. It’s all ashes now, smoke and rumor.
“But let’s talk about the future,” Baine continues. “I think it’s safe to assume the courts would grant Jasper’s guardianship to his uncle, especially given his sister’s . . . behavior.” She cuts a glance at me, handcuffed and panting, reeking of smoke.
“You can’t see it, but I want you to know that I’m flipping you off.”
Baine is unmoved. “And I don’t think Mr. Gravely would be inclined to send him off to Stonewood. After all, he’s been offered a position in the family company. Why shouldn’t he take it?”
“Because he has asthma, you fucking ghoul.” Lacey’s dad works at the plant, and she told me the hood of his car is covered in fine black soot by the end of each day. All it would take is a long shift, a broken inhaler, a walk back to the motel on a misty night.
Panic chokes me, turns my voice into something like a plea. “He wouldn’t make it a year.”
Gravely blinks rapidly. Baine lifts and drops her shoulder again in that delicate, maddening shrug.
I wet my lips and observe, conversationally, “I’ll kill you.”
“Difficult, once you’re jailed for arson.”
She’s goading me, watching me with idle blue eyes while she screws with my whole life, and I’m sick of it. “Jesus, just leave us alone. I don’t even work for Arthur anymore, thanks to you!”
Baine leans back against fake leather. “I know.”
“And even if I did, even if I begged—” An image of Arthur interrupts me, the way I saw him last: on his knees, eyes closed, like some ancient penitent. I swallow. “He wouldn’t give me the keys.”
A flash of humor in her eyes. “No?”
“No.” Arthur might want me, but I’ve seen him put his fist through a window rather than reach for what he wants. He won’t falter, won’t bend. I swallow again and meet Baine’s eyes. “I can’t help you.”
“I know.” She’s still perfectly serene.
“So are we done?”
She gives me a small, patronizing smile. “No.”