something to drink?” Mom asked as she crossed over to the same high-backed chair she always sat in when she was in this room.
“No, thank you.” I went to the sofa and sat. I would’ve preferred to stay up and moving, but I wanted my parents to tell me the truth, and if I aggravated them from the beginning, we’d never get to the reason I was here.
“Millie, darlin’, will you get a sweet tea for Jaylin and me?” Dad didn’t bother to turn from where he stood in the doorway, simply expecting his command to be carried out.
I stood up again and held out my hand, determined to maintain my composure. I wouldn’t give either of my parents the satisfaction of knowing anything about how I was feeling or thinking unless I chose to. Besides, if offering general courtesies would help me catch them off guard, so much the better.
We exchanged the usual pleasantries about health and weather until Millie brought in two glasses of sweet tea and left again. The moment she was out of sight, Dad crossed one leg over the other and gave me a smug smile.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to come crawlin’ back.”
Of course, that was what he’d think I was doing here. I let him keep going, though. He liked the sound of his own voice, and I’d learned young that if I kept quiet, he’d give me more information than if I asked outright.
“Everyone has their rebellions,” he continued. “Well, except your sister, but we all know you and Ashley aren’t anythin’ alike. I suppose you got all the negative that was supposed to go into her too.”
This wasn’t the first time he’d tried baiting me by pointing out the ways I failed to live up to Ashley’s standards. I hadn’t fallen for it since I was a teenager, but he never stopped trying.
“Now, I can’t give you back everythin’ I gave her. That just wouldn’t be fair. So, she’ll keep the bulk of the estate, includin’ the house, but I’m willing to reinstate your ability to withdraw from the general account. Plus, I’ll leave a quarter of your previous inheritance to you again. That’s all I can do, though. Your sister deserves a reward for never havin’ been disloyal to this family.”
Dad looked pleased with himself, but that wasn’t going to last long.
“I’m not here about money,” I said, keeping my tone even. “Or you putting me back in your will.”
His smile froze, like he couldn’t understand what I was saying, or he’d understood it but had no idea how to respond because he’d never imagined I’d turn down his offer of reinstatement. I was leaning toward the latter, and it made me wonder if he’d ever really understood me at all.
Either because she knew me better and wasn’t surprised or because she was better at hiding what she was thinking, Mom recovered first.
“Why, son, if you’re not here for that, then why are you here?”
There’s a certain sugar-sweet tone that women in the South use for phrases like ‘bless your heart’ that lets anyone familiar with the culture know that they’re only a minute away from being bitch-slapped either literally or figuratively, depending on the severity of the offense and the relationship to the person speaking.
As a kid, I’d gotten a hand across the face more times than I could count after hearing Mom say something in that tone. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but definitely enough to make my eyes water. Still, it didn’t intimidate me the way it once had.
“I’m here to tell you that your ruse with Nyx Phoenix won’t work.”
I’d spent the entire drive here trying to figure out the best way to word this conversation. I needed to make it a statement rather than a question since my father saw asking questions as a weakness. Better to pretend that you’re certain of something even if you’re not one hundred percent than to give someone a way to circumvent the answer. I didn’t necessarily agree with his way of thinking, but one of the other things I’d learned growing up in this family was how to use a person’s character traits to steer them in the direction I wanted.
“What is a ‘Nyx Phoenix?’” Mom asked, frowning. Well, frowning as much as her Botox and other fillers would allow.
I suppressed a sigh. “All right, maybe you don’t know her name, but how many other private investigators from New York have you hired to