she should or not, Dana was starting to believe it.
Plus, she really did have to watch the time. Mom kept a phone tracker on her, and if she decided to check it, she would not be happy to find Dana in the coffee shop instead of locked up safe and sound like she was supposed to be.
Dana’s phone buzzed. She flipped it over. A message from Chelsea flashed onto the screen.
What’s going on? You done yet?
Dana shoved the phone back in her purse.
Jeannie looked out the window for a long moment, making up her mind. “Okay. We play this your way. Your mother was with us from when she was about five to when she was about fifteen, when we split up. Why? It’s complicated.”
“Mom said you guys were…” Dana couldn’t make herself say it.
“Con artists?” Jeannie suggested. “Scammers? Criminals?”
“Serial cheats.”
“Huh.” Jeannie scratched her cheek with one perfectly clean, perfectly polished nail. “That’s a good one. Well, she’s right. We were.” She paused. “Of course, she was too.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jeannie’s got cancer, Star.
Beth had imagined a thousand different ways her parents’ demand for money would finally come down. But never this—Todd Bowen, alone, telling her Jeannie was sick.
Beth lifted her hand and pressed her thumb and forefinger together, rubbing the tips slowly back and forth.
“It’s the world’s smallest violin, Dad, playing just for you and Mom.”
Todd sighed, tired and wounded. “Star…”
Beth shook her head. “Nuh-uh. You do not get to pull this one on me. How many times did I hear you trot out some imaginary dead relative for the suckers? How many times did you remind me that if I got caught, I should tell store security that my mother was sick and I just wanted to get her something to make her feel better?”
“Yeah, of course I forgot about all that,” he said flatly. “You think I’d pick this story if I had any choice? Like I didn’t know you’d laugh in my face?” He took her hand. Beth froze. That touch was so familiar—at once so loved and so hated. “But it is true, and we need you, Star. We always have, but now…now it’s all different.”
Beth wanted to pull away from him, but visceral memory pinned down nerve and soul. She was in a motel room, in a diner, in the back seat of the car in the parking lot. Her father held her hand, just like this. He talked quietly to her, just like this. He told her how it was and how it was going to be. The little girl she had been listened, and she grabbed onto the certainty in her father’s words—eager for it and sick of it at the same time. Not that her feelings mattered. What mattered was that she pay strict attention to every word. He was telling her what she had to be. She had to forget what she’d seen or felt or thought even just a minute before. Whatever he was saying right now, that was real, and she had to get it right.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he said, so gently. “I knew you wouldn’t want to believe it, especially after all those other times. Maybe it’s karma, you know? The universe is letting me know how all the suckers felt. I don’t know. I just know that it’s true and it’s happening. I wish to God it wasn’t.”
A soft ache rose inside Beth, tempted by the regret and compassion in his voice, just like it always had been. Her father saw it, and he smiled.
“Hey, you still got that scar?” Todd turned her hand over and ran one finger up the inside of her forearm. “Yep. There it is.” He brushed the mottled patch of pink-and-white skin right below her elbow. “God, I’m never going to forget that. The bone tore right through the skin, and all that blood. You never forget the sight of your child’s blood, dripping down.” Lightly, lovingly, he traced the path that blood had taken as it flowed across her skin. “I was almost sick right there. It was like it was happening to me.”
Believe him, believe him! screamed the little girl inside her. You have to.
“You pushed me down those stairs.”
“Oh, come on, Star.” He squeezed her hand, gently, gently. “You know that’s not how it was. You were trying to run away. I was trying to catch you. You slipped.”
Believe those calm, blue eyes. That sweet voice. It doesn’t matter what you really did or what