Chapter 30
AMY
“Just a second!” a female voice calls from behind the door.
I stand on Kirstin’s perfectly cute porch, staring at the little American flags she has set out for Memorial Day, the gnome wearing a flag-themed Speedo. It’s a perfect blend of cute and silly, which is exactly how I’d describe Kirstin’s personality.
When my sister throws open the door, I know I’m not who she expected to see.
“You should always look through the peephole,” I say lamely. “You never know who’s going to be at your door.”
“I heard the weird sound of your car,” she says, gesturing to the driveway, where my EV sits. “I knew it was you.”
We stand quietly for a moment, and I take a deep breath, looking up at the underside of her roof before returning my gaze to her and saying, “I’m sorry, Kir.”
She leans against the doorway, crossing her arms, staring at me. The big-sister sign for go on.
“I got drinks with Mom,” I say, as the introduction to my explanation, and Kirstin’s face shifts slightly to worry.
“And?”
“Oh, you know,” I say with a laugh, “the usual. She wishes she never had kids. Only has time for her career. That sort of thing.”
Kirstin presses her lips together and tilts her head at me, and I try to force down the sudden sob in my throat, but it rises up all the same, making me choke up.
“Sorry,” I say, putting my face in my hands. Kirstin is there in a second, putting her arm around me. “I’m sorry,” I say again, voice muffled by my fingers. “I don’t know why this is so hard for me.”
“Honey,” Kirstin says, and the next thing I know, she’s ushering me in through the threshold, leading me to the table, her voice dropping. “Rae and Jordan are down for their naps.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“It’s not a big deal to cry, Amy, we all do it.”
“No, I’m sorry for what I said to you. I know how hard you work with the kids, and I never want to imply that you’re not doing as much as I am.”
I hiccup a sob, then clap my hand over my mouth, the hysterics working up my stomach again, bringing back the nausea that just hasn’t gone away.
“It’s okay,” Kirstin says, rubbing at my back.
Then, dropping her voice, she says, “You know, if you were like Mom, and you just wanted to have this awesome career, I would support you in that. But I always got the feeling that you wanted family life, too. And you felt like you had to push that part of yourself away.”
I nod, my hand still on my mouth, and when I realize I’m going to be sick, I push her away, standing and hurrying to the little bathroom in the hallway, the one furthest from the kids’ rooms.
When I emerge, Kirstin is standing there with a cool cloth, her eyes trained weirdly on me.
“Amy,” she says, her eyes scanning up and down my body. I reach out and take the cloth, setting it on my forehead, recognizing it as something our dad used to do when we got sick. “When… when was the last time you had your period?”
“Trust me,” I say, hiccupping, “I am not on my period right now. If I was, it would explain…”
My voice dies away when I see the way Kirstin is looking at me, my mind scrambling to put together her expression with the way I’ve been feeling lately. Tired. Hungry. Angry. Crying and throwing up.
“Oh, my God,” I hiss, body bending at the realization. I suck in a great breath of air, wheeze it out, and feel Kirstin’s hand on my back, once again guiding me in the direction of the table. “Oh, my God.”
“Okay, breathe, just breathe,” she says, forcing me down into a chair, like she thinks I might pass out.
And I just might.
For a long moment, she just rubs my back, and I stare out the window at the tree in her front yard, the one that was dead that day in January, when I was here for the twins’ birthday. It will be May in just a few days.
So much time has passed.
“Amy,” Kirstin says gently, “do you know who…”
“Evan.” His name comes out of my mouth numbly, and with it brings a fresh wave of pain and panic. “Oh, God—he hates me. What am I going to do about this?”
“Okay,” Kirstin says, disappearing into the kitchen and returning a moment later with two tall glasses. She sets one down in front of me, then says, “Don’t worry. It’s iced tea. Now, I want you to tell me everything. From the start.”
I stare at the condensation on the glass, not sure if I can bring myself to do it.
“Amy,” Kirstin presses, and I let out a sigh, looking up at her—and I think, not for the first time, that the only thing Kirstin got from Mom is her eyes.
“Okay,” I say, and then I do. I tell her everything that she doesn’t already know.
About the cops outside his cabin. About what I started to suspect when it came to McKay.
What I confirmed in the meeting with him today.
“They’re supposed to have the town council meeting in, like, an hour,” I say, glancing down at my watch.
“But I know Evan doesn’t want to see me. I’ll just email the recording to the—”
“No,” Kirstin says, standing up, shaking her head.
I blink at her. “No?”
“No,” she insists, already pulling out her phone.
“I’m texting Greg to come home. I’ve never seen you as happy as you were with Evan.
You need to get over yourself and tell him you want this, too.
Tell him about your… situation. You need to tell him how you feel, Amy, and let him decide how he feels about this whole thing. ”
“But—”
“You said it yourself,” she says, pointing at me with her phone. “By the time they get the recording, it could be too late. We are going there. Right now.”
Something like hope and joy starts to rise up inside me. I could have decided at any moment to go up to Granite Peaks, but it’s like I needed permission. Needed someone else to tell me it’s a good idea.
Now, here she is.
“Okay,” I say, standing.
“Well,” Kirstin laughs, pushing my shoulder so I sit back down, “you can finish your tea. I actually can’t leave until Greg gets home.”
Despite everything—the excitement, the adrenaline bubbling up in my throat—I laugh. There are a million things I could say to my sister right now, but I settle on the most obvious.
“I love you,” I say, and she makes an aw face, reaching over and ruffling my hair.
“I love you, too.”
As we walk down the hallways of Granite Peaks Town Hall, trying to find the room they’re all in, I hear a voice echoing from a set of double doors.
“…we have several complaints, including one that the hazard caused a car accident. You really think McKay would go to all this trouble to hire all these different people and file formal complaints against you and your land, Mr. Thatcher?”
I walk faster, not stopping to think about what it will look like when I burst through the doors, breathing hard, determined to help. Everyone turns to look at me, eyes going wide, and I catch Brendon glance at Kendra, making a little hand gesture.
“Amy?” Evan says my name like he didn’t mean to, his eyes locked on me. Kirstin catches up to me, bumping into my back as she barrels through the door a little too quickly, just like I did.
“Wait,” I say, breathlessly, and I can hear Kirstin sliding to the side behind me, finding a place along the wall. I force myself to look away from Evan, looking at the mayor instead. One thing at a time. “Is the meeting adjourned?”
“No,” Carp says from the front of the room, a smile playing over his lips. “It is not.”
“Wonderful.” I stop, taking a second to breathe, reaching into my pocket for my phone.
Waiting for Greg to get to the house felt like an eternity.
The entire time my little EV powered up the side of the mountain, I thought we were going to be too late.
Walk into an empty meeting hall. “Because I have evidence that will prove McKay Capital Management is behind this entire thing.”
There’s a satisfyingly dramatic gasp throughout the room, and I can’t stop the smile from crossing my lips. In the front of the room, a tall man in a drab gray suit stands up, turning to face me.”
“Who are you?” he asks, tucking a clipboard under his arm. “What do you have to do with any of this?”
“I’m Amy Callaghan,” I say, “leader of the acquisitions team at McKay.”
The guy sways, shrinking back a bit, looking worried.
Good. He should be.
“Former leader of acquisitions,” I clarify, looking over at Evan when I say it, watching the flicker of surprise that plays over his face.
God, I’ve missed him. There are bags under his eyes, and he looks more gaunt than the last time I saw him, but it doesn’t matter. I just want to run to him, scoop him up in my arms, and squeeze him to my body.
I want to go back to the cabin with him. Let him touch me. Let him help me find my quiet.
But I have to make sure he gets to keep his land first.
“This is an audio recording I took today of a conversation between me and my boss, Don. He’s the one who first sent me to Granite Peaks, told me to go up to Evan’s property and said there was a fallen tree that had caused an accident.”
I tap the button on my phone, and somehow the little speaker is mighty enough to ring through the room. Or maybe everyone is just holding their breath to be able to hear it.
Don’s voice comes out strong, slimy, “Think about it; what makes better use of the land—one tiny cabin, or a ski resort that everyone can enjoy?”
Then, you can hear me asking, “How did you do it? I worked on it for weeks, and I just never found an in.”
I glance at Evan, wanting to tell him with my expression that it was a lie, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring at the man from the state, his expression carefully blank.
“You’d think for a town trying to raise all sorts of money for some restoration project, they’d be more pleased about the generous donation I offered to make.”
Carp’s jaw tightens, and the state guy goes a bit pale, his eyes darting to me. “McKay tried to bribe the town council?”
“I can neither confirm nor deny,” I say, tapping to pause it, my heart skipping along in my chest. “But I can play the tape for you.”
He works his jaw. “Go on.”
I tap the button to play it, and Don’s voice comes through again, that little self-righteous laugh he does making my skin crawl, even from a hundred miles away.
“Anyway, we had to go for a different angle when you didn’t find that first tree. Guess he cleaned it up pretty quick. So, we made sure to find a more remote part of the property. Another fallen tree. This time, he was down in the town long enough that we could… document everything appropriately.”
Evan’s face shows a barely contained rage. I glance at the council, find Beverly gripping her pen so hard I’m shocked it hasn’t split in half.
“So, it’s down to the state now?”
“Yup. When the council wouldn’t play along, we went over their heads. We’ve made an offer to the state already, on hold for when they put the property up. Nobody else is even going to have a chance at it.”
I catch Brendon mouth, What the fuck? to Kendra.
“Very clever. All your idea?” I ask on the tape, and it’s like everyone waits to hear what’s next. Don’s voice sounds again, putting the final nail in the coffin: “Sure was.”