She could get through this alone. She didn’t need a crutch. No matter how much she wanted hi—it.

“Take your shoes off, please. The carpet.”

Megan blinked. Her mother nodded toward a rack by the door. “Shoes off, Megan.”

For a minute she thought about running. Turning around, leaving the house, picking up her bag, and just going home.

Instead she just bent and unzipped her boots, placing them neatly on the rack.

“I’ve made coffee,” Diane said. She still had not touched Megan or looked her directly in the eyes. “In the kitchen.”

They trooped past a living room almost unchanged since the day Megan left for what she thought would be the last time. The furniture sitting placidly in the overheated air looked new, but was the same style and color it had been before. The family portraits still hung in the same places on the walls, although Megan noticed the ones with her in them had been moved farther down and some were missing altogether. No surprise there.

“Why am I here, Mother?”

“Sit down.”

Megan glanced at the chairs. Their hard wooden seats and straight backs promised physical discomfort as well as the mental unease of being here to begin with. Why were they even in here? They’d never had meals in the kitchen or even coffee. The kitchen was for unacceptable guests, for contractors giving estimates or—

Answered her own question there, hadn’t she?

She sat. And waited. If there was one thing she was good at, it was waiting for the other person to speak first.

Her mother placed a cup in front of her, along with a little china boat of cream and a matching bowl of sugar cubes. Megan shook her head.

The coffee, damn it, was delicious. Diane always had been a good cook; it was one of the few things aside from her looks Megan had inherited.

“Apparently your father made a new will a few weeks ago,” Diane said, shifting in her seat. “He—”

“How did he die?”

“Don’t interrupt me, please. Our attorney has the new will and he informed me that we all have to be at the reading. That’s why you’re here. Plus I thought perhaps you would like to pay your respects to the man who supported you throughout your childhood. He deserves your quiet and unobtrusive presence.”

“What happens if I don’t go? To the reading of the will, I mean.”

Her mother sniffed and took a dainty sip from her cup. “I didn’t ask. I assumed that when I explained the situation to you, you would of course do the right thing and help your family avoid any inconvenience.”

Megan’s legs tensed, ready to get up and leave. She didn’t want to be here, didn’t want anything to do with any of this.

But she stayed. Because if she didn’t this would follow her home. Because she had a good reputation as a psychological counselor and news of a huge rift in her family would shed a bad light on that at a time when her radio show was her only income.

“Fine,” she managed. “How did he die?”

“Heart attack.” Her mother leaned back in her chair and smoothed her skirt. “He’d had several before.”

Megan didn’t bother to ask why no one had called her then, and it didn’t matter anyway because a rattling sound from the living room indicated someone was walking into the house.

Diane’s face lit up. She pushed herself out of her seat and practically floated from the room. “David!”

“Mom! Mom, are you okay?”

Megan turned in her seat and peeked out from around the open doorway of the kitchen to see her older brother, his fair head bent as he embraced their mother, who sobbed theatrically and clung to him.

If she’d thought about it, she would have known he’d be here. Dave was the fair-haired boy in more ways than one.

They entered the kitchen, her mother and brother—her family—and Dave helped their mother into a chair. He glanced up.

“Megan. Oh. Hi.”

“Hi, Dave.”

“I didn’t think—well, wow. It’s nice to see you.”

Her smile felt painted on. “Yeah, you too.”

They all sat in silence for a minute before Megan stood up. “Well, I should go. Um, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t be late. Eleven o’clock, at our church.” The look Diane gave her clearly indicated she thought Megan was planning on showing up drunk halfway through the service.

“Um…our church?”

“United Methodist,” Dave said. Like Megan was supposed to know. “On Oak.”

“Okay, well, I’ll be there. See you tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Dave stood up. She had no idea what he was doing these days, if he was married or had kids or…anything. The last time she’d seen him he was still doing some low-level dealing out of his bedroom.

He took her arm and led her to the door. “Listen…,” he said, while she shoved her feet back into her boots. “There’s going to be a lot of people there tomorrow, you know? A lot of friends of Mom and Dad’s.”

“Yeah?” For the first time since she’d walked in the door, she had the urge to lower her shields. Idle curiosity, really. But the memory of Gerald’s sister’s pain and the reaction it had caused put her off the idea before it even finished crossing her mind. Dave would be upset about their father’s death, and she would feel that, and…no.

“So…” Dave’s blue eyes, so like her own, widened. “So it would be nice if you wouldn’t make a scene, you know? Maybe just keep to the back, out of the way…?”

She stared at him. Once, when they were children, they’d been close. Only three years separated them. Now it felt more like fifty. “Sure, Dave. I’ll try to remember not to pee in front of the altar.”

She was out the door and gone before the puzzled expression left his face.

One day she would learn to stop paying attention to the little voice in her head that told her to lighten up.

She’d listened to it this time, and that’s why she was stuck in a booth at Kelly’s Tap with Cassie, Amy, and Jen, three women who’d had nothing but nasty things to say to her for years and now seemed to think their mutual attendance at the same high school meant they were bonded like Vietnam vets.

Which for Megan wasn’t an entirely inappropriate analogy.

She couldn’t blame just the voice in her head, though. Her craving for a drink and anything to look at other than the bland hotel furnishings had something to do with it as well. So had Rocturnus, who was actually spending the evening at Megan’s mother’s house. There was plenty of misery to go around over there.

And here. Or maybe this wasn’t misery. Maybe it was filth. She’d never been in such a sticky place. A thin film of whitish grime seemed to cling to everything and everyone. Even the music coming from the aged jukebox—a mixture of soft rock and modern country—sounded distorted and fuzzy, like the speakers were clogged with phlegm.

She shifted in her seat and drank her beer, while the ladies discussed memories they shared, which had nothing to do with Megan. Once they’d ascertained she didn’t know any celebrities, wasn’t married, and didn’t have children, they’d completely lost interest in her.

Not surprising.

She shifted in her seat, lifted her bottle again. This was a huge mistake. As she tuned out the chatter of the women at her table she became aware of other conversations, less friendly ones, taking place around her. It hadn’t taken the locals long to figure out who she was. Their suspicion and resentment beat against her skin.

Nine o’clock. The liquor stores would be closed, but there was a gas station not far. She could buy her own beer and sit in her hotel room and drink it. Even being alone with her thoughts—of Gerald, of Greyson, of her family—would be better than feeling the eyes and anger of Grant Falls’s drunks focused on her like a lightning rod.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” she said. Cassie, Amy, and Jen ignored her. So much for catching up.

The sticky floor sucked at her feet as she made her way to the back of the room and the dull illumination of the cracked bathroom sign. There might be a storeroom, another way out, so she didn’t have to walk through the small crowd again.