have known your mother would kill herself with those drugs."
"Did you ever think that she didn't kill herself?" Maya interrupted. "Did either of you consider that possibility?"
Her dad looked at her with sorrowful eyes. "No, because I was there, and she was so upset. I made her feel worthless. I tried to hurt her, and obviously I did."
She looked over at Jax, and she saw the answer she was looking for in his eyes. He wanted her to tell the story they'd come up with, but it was a lie, and there had been so many lies already between her father and herself. She wanted to be honest with him now.
On the other hand, Blake was a wildcard. She didn't know how he fit in exactly.
Why had her father come running over here? Just to protect his story from that night? Or was there another reason?
"So that's it," her dad said. "Now you know. If you want to put that in your movie, I guess I can't stop you. I'm sure the police will want to talk to me."
"Did you ever consider coming forward?"
"No. I couldn't. I locked that night away. Until you forced me to open the door again."
"Did you know Julia Poplova?"
Her father blinked in surprise. "Yes, she was Mom's friend from Russia. She played tennis. Why are you asking me about her?"
"Because she died this morning in what appears to be a suicide." She didn't say anything about the note, because she wasn't sure how far she wanted to take the story with her dad.
"I—I don't know what to say," her dad said. "How do you know?"
"I went there to see her. I found her body."
Her father paled. "Oh, my God. Maya, I'm sorry."
"I'd never seen…" She let her voice trail away. "It was bad."
"So, you went to see Julia and then you came here," her dad said slowly. "Why?" His gaze moved to Blake. "What do you know?"
"Absolutely nothing," Blake said, throwing up his hands in a sign of innocence. "I haven't seen Julia in years. Why did you come here, Maya?"
"Because there was a picture of you and Julia in her house, and I wanted to know how you knew her and if she ever spoke about my grandmother to you."
"Oh, right. I played at her tennis club a few times. But I haven't seen her in a decade, at least. I don't know that we ever talked about Natasha beyond just the usual how sad it was she died young kind of conversation. I wish I could tell you something else."
"You could have told me about the drugs when I first asked you."
"I'd made a promise to your father," Blake said. "That's why I told you to remind him about the pool house. I wanted him to remember the promise we made to each other."
"I can't believe you were selling drugs, Dad." She shook her head in bewilderment. The man was truly becoming a stranger to her.
"I never did again, not after that night."
"I didn't, either," Blake said. "We were scared straight. We were always afraid the drugs would be traced back to us."
"If you'd come clean, maybe the police would have done something different. Maybe Natasha's death would have been investigated more thoroughly."
"I thought she killed herself," her dad said. "I thought that until just now. But Julia…dying the same way my mom did…that's strange."
"Was there a note?" Blake asked.
As she thought about his question, she wondered if he'd had a more specific reason for asking it. And now she knew she had to tell the story. "Yes. There was a note. Julia confessed to killing Natasha. She said the weight of guilt was too much and now that I was looking into the murder, she had to be done. She said she was sorry."
"What?" her father asked in shock.
Surprise ran through Blake's eyes as well.
Were both reactions honest? Or was one of them hiding something?
"You're saying that Julia killed Natasha," Blake said slowly, his gaze dark and somewhat unreadable. "That's unbelievable."
"Completely unbelievable," her father echoed.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because Mom and Julia were friends," her dad replied. "Mom used to babysit Julia when she was a little kid. She always told me she felt like Julia was her sister."
"Constantine told me that they had a falling out, that Julia thought Natasha had become too Americanized. She'd lost her roots, her values."
"Well, that was true," her father said. "But why would she kill her? It doesn’t add up."