a lineage I could track back to aristocracy.
They were rich and powerful.
“Yeah,” I said.
“But my sister hates our grandmother even more than I do. Two stubborn people that think they’re right… and in the end, she was stubborn enough not to let her win,” Mavis continued. “This is something that Fran will share but… we’ve had a rough childhood. We may have the Pope name—at least most of the time—but we definitely don’t have the Pope love.” She inhaled roughly and brushed her lips across Vlad’s head. “The money released each month is like blood money. It reminds us of how much we should have had but don’t. That we’re on a leash when we’d rather be flying free. And that money is what Fran lived on for a year because of me.” Mavis paused. “Before you and CrossFit, she was working with her errands business, trying to make ends meet, but wasn’t really giving it her all. I mean, what’s the point? She’d already been hit hard too many times to count. If anyone deserved to live and do nothing, it’s her. But then you and this bootcamp came along, and I’ve watched her change. Flourish. Turn into the person that I hadn’t seen since before the attack.”
I felt raw inside.
“She’ll come around,” Mavis promised. “Just give her another day. She has more to tell you. And I think that she’ll figure it out with herself rather quickly. Especially with the way she whined last night about how she’d pushed you away.”
That gave me a small smile to wear.
That small smile eventually fell off my face as I closed up the gym with Madden.
Sadly, despite my Gran’s attempt to cheer me up, the night went to complete shit about halfway through dinner, thanks to another murder.
Even worse, there were news reporters at the house, and frustrated, one of the other officers that was there controlling the police barricade let it slip that there’d been a witness to one of the murders.
Who had that witness been?
Fran.
Son of a bitch.
CHAPTER 18
If the bar ain’t bending, you’re just pretending.
-Text from Fran to Taos
FRAN
“I told Taos to give you one more day,” Mavis said as she spoon-fed Vlad some green baby food.
Peas, I thought.
“What?” I asked, sounding shocked. “Why?”
I practically all but thrust my entire face into hers to better witness her explanation.
“Because you looked like you needed to work up the courage to finish telling him everything,” she said simply.
I felt my stomach jolt.
“There’s not really much to tell,” I admitted. “I just… I’m scared to talk to him. I’m scared he’s going to look at me differently.”
She rolled her eyes, then cursed. “Dang it. I forgot to go get the paper. Can you take over for a second?”
I rolled my eyes as she took off for the front door, handing me the spoon as she passed.
Vlad shrieked in protest, but I picked up the jar—yep, I was right. Peas—and brought a spoonful to his lips.
He ate it hungrily.
I laughed at his exuberance—oh, I wished he would keep loving peas—and fed him the rest of the jar before Mavis returned with the paper open as she walked into the room.
“Anything?” I asked.
Vlad’s father, Bayne Green, was on the way into town with his band. She wanted to make sure that she wasn’t anywhere near him and his scheduled appearances this weekend, so she was double-checking everything.
I didn’t blame her. Bayne Green was a dick.
When he’d learned that he’d had a kid with Mavis, he’d told her to ‘get rid of it.’
Mavis went out of her way not to associate Vlad with Bayne, and the good thing was, when you looked at Vlad, all you could really see was Mavis and me.
Thankfully, Bayne’s good looks were nowhere to be found in Vlad.
Bayne whose hometown was good ol’ Paris, Texas. Which was now becoming a local presence in and of itself thanks to it being the hometown of the bad boy of rock and roll.
“Okay, we’re all set.” She heaved a sigh. “The article in the paper says that…”
My eyes went to the paper as she got closer, and my eyes took in the photo on the front page.
My stomach sank as I got a good close up of my freakin’ house.
It was a photo that had my house and the house featuring the dead woman thanks to the serial killer, side by side.
Both looked really gloomy and ugly, thanks to the recent rainstorms battering our area.
Even my dead flowers near the mailbox added