She thought back to a long-ago night—one of many that she’d spent ten long years trying to forget—and her stomach clenched. Somehow she’d known the nightmare would eventually catch up with her. She’d deluded herself into believing that after thirteen years, a new city, and a new name, the past would stay in the past.
But it looked like she’d been wrong. Evidence of that was sitting here on a grimy cab floor, taunting her in a yellow envelope.
She shifted her legs and leaned down to pick it up. She had to open the damn thing and find out what was inside, or she’d never be able to go out her front door again without fearing her past would roll up to the curb with blue lights flashing.
With shaky fingers and closed eyes, she undid the clasp and slid her hand inside to feel a sheaf of papers. She drew them out slowly and laid them on her lap, then took a deep breath and opened her eyes.
For a long moment she stared at the first piece of paper, then felt her eyes prickle. It wasn’t an arrest warrant. It wasn’t a court summons.
It was a check.
For twenty-five thousand dollars.
And it was made out to her—to the her she was today, not the her that had left her clothes, her life, and her name back in grimy little Smugglers’ Gully thirteen long years ago.
She slid the check aside and picked up the next piece of paper, a letter that addressed her by her current name. Her breath hitched as her finger traced the letters.
We regret to inform you, it began, and as she read the sentences, the words faded and blurred. Funeral was last Saturday…he didn’t want you to know…didn’t want to put you in a position to come home again…hopes you’ll accept this small token…regrets that he wasn’t able to help when you most needed it…but maybe now.
Jess read the words over and over again, hardly breathing.
Grampy. Her one bright buoy in a sea of whiskey-soaked years.
Dead.
Her mind flashed back twenty-two years to when she was eight, riding in the backseat of Grampy’s car with a fresh ice pop melting down her sticky fingers.
—
“We gonna strike it rich this week, princess?” Grampy smiled in the rearview mirror. “I got a dollar for you and a dollar for me. What say we get a couple o’ scratch tickets and try our luck?”
They walked into Mack’s convenience store hand-in-hand and looked through the glass counter, picking their tickets. With a to-go cup of coffee for him and a root beer for her, they sat at Mack’s little picnic table, scratching their tickets slowly, reverently.
This could be the one. You never knew.
Grampy’s hand stilled hers as she scratched, and she flinched, then felt sorry for the hurt she saw in his eyes.
“Whatcha gonna do if you win a million, honey?”
She bit her lip, still raw from last night. Then, in a whisper, she said, “I’m gonna leave, Grampy. Gonna go west.”
An old refrain—his.
He nodded, then indicated the ticket with his chin. “Me, too, baby. Me, too.”
After they’d scratched their tickets and lost, she’d sat there, letting her freeze pop melt, willing its purple juice to slide down her wrist and mask her new bruises before Grampy could see them and ask questions.
—
Jess shook her head, knocking the memory loose. She looked at the check shaking in her fingers. Looked like Grampy had finally picked a winning ticket.
So this was his gift to her—his apology, really—for never doing more? For never loading up that Chevy with groceries and clothes and taking off for Colorado with her in the backseat? Would he have taken her away sooner if he’d known?
This had to be why her aunt had called earlier. Why else would she have bothered to track Jess down after all this time? Jess glanced at the date in the letter. Grampy had died four weeks ago.
She sighed. No, Luanne wasn’t calling to inform her of his death. Luanne must have figured out he’d left Jess some money. And when Luanne smelled money, there wasn’t a bloodhound in South Carolina who could track it better than her.
Fear snaked her gut as she realized if Luanne knew about the check, then so did Roxie. And Jess’s mother would stop at nothing to get her grubby paws on money she thought should be hers, even if it’d been left to her own daughter.
Heck, if Roxie knew that her daughter had just inherited twenty-five thousand