Chapter 6
Chapter Six
“IDON’T KNOW how you and Erin got all this construction talent while I struggle to tell my wrenches apart.
” Heather stared up at the new support beam Amy had added to the cabin after demolishing a wall.
“Seriously. I don’t even remember setting foot in the family lumberyard until I was at least a teenager. ”
Their first meeting in ten years hadn’t been as awkward as Amy had feared, but that had everything to do with her bighearted sister and very little to do with Amy herself.
Heather had breezed in with a quick hug that had ended just before Amy could start to feel smothered, then proceeded to fill the dead air with chatter about Heartache and questions about the remodeling of the hunting cabin.
So far, they’d avoided anything too personal, including talk of the trial and the family.
Or at least, they’d only talked of the Finleys as it related to their construction business.
“That’s because we were forever sticking you with Mom.
” Amy unplugged the cord for the reciprocating saw, not wanting her sister to trip since Heather wore heeled boots with her pink paisley shirt dress, a bold choice with her long red curls.
“Erin and I were always the first to raise our hands when Dad gave any of us a chance to tag along on a job or help in the warehouse.”
She hadn’t thought about that in a long time. She and Erin would race shopping carts down the wide aisles, sometimes using them like go-carts and vaulting into the baskets at the last second.
Their oldest brother, Scott, had hated it when they did things like that, always trying hard to make the family more upstanding and respectable. Less...wild. But their father didn’t seem to mind. Or maybe he hadn’t really noticed.
“That’s funny.” The long fringe on Heather’s sleeveless maroon sweater swept through the sawdust on a pile of planks as she peered into the open floor joists. “I remember being relieved when the house was quieter. I think Mom was easier to manage one-on-one.”
The fact that Heather seemed to be examining the remodeling project more than quizzing her about their mother made it easier to talk about Diana Finley. A topic Amy normally shut down faster than any other.
“Five kids would probably make anyone a little twitchy.” She’d gained that much perspective at least. “Don’t ask me why Mom, of all people, would have that many children to care for when she’d barely been able to care for herself more often than not.”
After miscarrying her only pregnancy, Amy would have traded anything for just one healthy baby. The ache of that loss still hit her at unexpected times.
“In the early days of their marriage, I doubt she had any idea how bad the bipolar disorder would get.” Backing away from the gaping hole in the cabin floor, Heather turned her attention to the small kitchen.
“I can’t believe this place doesn’t even have a cooktop.
I think Mack has a propane camp stove that you could set up on the counter. Want me to bring that next time?”
“That would be great.” A wave of gratitude rolled over her at the realization that her sister was trying to make this visit easy on her.
Because, hell yes, she’d rather talk about cook stoves than Mom.
And yet it was nice to hear Heather acknowledge that their mother’s condition had worsened over the years.
Sometimes, as a teen, Amy felt like she was the only one who could see that. “Can I ask you a question?”
“I’ve waited a long time to have a conversation with you, Amy. Ask me anything.” Heather leaned up against the kitchen counter and waited.
“When the Covingtons tried to kidnap you, they didn’t try.
..to touch you?” Amy couldn’t reconcile the man who grabbed Heather with the one who had made her life a living hell ten years ago.
She was trying to connect the dots and would feel better if she could say for sure that Covington had been the one who’d grabbed her, too.
But she just hadn’t seen him well enough.
“I mean, how can Zach and Sam think that Jeremy is the same guy who tried to sexually assault Gabriella when the MO with you and Megan Bryer was so different? Gabby was an underage girl lured out by an internet predator to a remote location, and she would have been raped if not for Sam. Why do Zach and Sam believe that perpetrator is the same man who grabbed an adult woman in a public place and threw you in a van?”
Heather paused and seemed to consider the question. She tucked her hair behind one ear before answering.
“I haven’t heard all the evidence myself, so I can’t say for sure.
But there have been other victims. And it sounds like Jeremy operated by himself ten years ago, whereas now they believe his son is working with him, so that could change how he preys on women.
Plus, Megan is underage, and she was targeted online through a video-game chat message, so there are similarities there. ”
“Are you nervous about testifying?” Amy folded her arms across her chest, feeling the chill in the morning air. She should have gotten a fire going before her sister arrived.
“No.” Heather’s answer came immediately. “I’m so furious about what he did—to Megan especially—that I can’t wait for my day in court to reveal him as a bastard to the world.”
“Good for you.” Admiring her attitude, Amy traced a pattern in the sawdust along a plywood plank. “Has Mom said much about the trial?”
Heather frowned, no doubt thinking it a strange question.
Amy had her reasons for asking. She wondered how much her mother remembered about their last argument.
The one where Amy had told her about The Incident, looking for guidance or maybe just a little empathy.
Instead finding only irrational anger directed at Amy and not at the guilty party.
Her mother had not been well that summer; Amy understood that.
But had she been medicated enough to have forgotten what Amy had confided?
“Not really. Mom insists that she saw Jeremy Covington giving me sidelong glances during Erin’s wedding reception, and somehow that was enough to mark him as a villain in her mind.
” Heather shrugged. “Some days she seems really solid on her new medicine, but other days...” She shook her head, not finishing the thought.
“She’s always been eccentric, though, right? ”
Understatement of the year.
“She did set my daily chore list to the tune of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ when I was in preschool.” It was a memory of mixed emotions. Sad because their mother couldn’t find any energy to do any household chores herself. But happy because she really had tried to make it fun.
“Exactly.” Heather came closer, tilting her head to see what Amy had drawn in the dust on the plywood.
Only then did it occur to her she’d sketched a tree at the edge of the forest, with a window in the distance.
Fighting the urge to erase it, she told herself that it wasn’t all that legible anyhow. Sawdust wasn’t exactly her medium. Besides, that image didn’t hold meaning for anyone but her...
“Sam’s coming over today,” she blurted, moving away from the site of her impromptu artwork. “He thinks talking about that summer before he left town with the Chances will somehow uncover new evidence.”
“Really?” Her sister leaned over the sawdust drawing and added a few flourishes that Amy couldn’t quite see. “Do you mind being around him? I always got the impression that your breakup was part of the reason you left.”
Was that what everyone thought? That they’d broken up, and Amy had left town because of it? Or that Sam had dumped her for another girl?
It didn’t matter now. None of it was true anyhow, a fact that had altered a lot of her view of the past.
“Sam was easy to be around ten years ago, and, in a lot of ways, he still is.”
She’d had a hard time admitting it to herself, but the truth revealed itself now. She liked Sam. Still.
“It’s funny you say that because a lot of people think he’s the most intimidating man in town.” Heather kept her head down, using one thick strand of the fringe from her sweater like a paintbrush to feather through the soft particles.
“He’s just quiet.” But she liked that, too. His silences gave her room to think.
“Well, all that quietness mixed with so much muscle makes it seem as if Heartache has its very own Secret Service agent.”
“That’s not a bad thing for a cop. And he seems good with his son.” She tossed that out there, curious if Heather knew any more than what Sam had already told her.
“I have no doubt that he’ll keep any child of his safe.” Heather arched back from her work. “Zach said Sam’s already looking to legalize his full custody to keep Aiden here.”
“He wants full custody?” That surprised her given his experience with the foster system. She remembered him saying two parents were optimal. It was a conversation that had come up once when she’d been so upset with her own mother she’d suggested she would be better off without her.
A cruel comment, she now realized. So many regrets. So much distance. And so damn hard to figure out how to work through it all.
“I guess he doesn’t want his son to ever feel unwanted, and he’s afraid that the mother could walk away at any time if she’s already floundering at parenting when the baby is so young.
” She waved Amy over. “Come see it now.” She pointed to the plywood plank.
“Doesn’t it look like the Chances’ house? ”
Amy stilled.
Her sister had added a horseshoe-shaped driveway to the dwelling Amy had only half started. Heather had also finished the tree out front. Added dimension to the house with a door and a deep front porch.
“Does it?” She kept her face carefully blank. “It’s been so long since I’ve seen it—I don’t remember.”
Memories swelled, clamoring to be acknowledged. Freed.
A cold sweat started to bead on her forehead, and she hoped it wasn’t visible.