“There’s something I need to come clean on,” she spoke to her hands. “When you first arrived here, Dad said that we needed to do everything we could to ensure you stayed.”
I blinked. “What?”
Rhona met my eyes briefly. “He told me to introduce you to people our age. I was meant to show you our community without being too pushy. He said you didn’t have much money, so I asked you to drive my friends around to eat into what you did have. Dad said you’d be a great addition to the team, and he’d never done that before. I figured it was because you were a Thana. But it was wrong.”
What the fuck. “He orchestrated all that?”
Herc offered me a rent-free apartment and a job within a minute of me expressing interest in remaining here. He and Rhona were a big part of my decision to stay.
They’d made me feel so welcome.
And it was all fake.
My mouth dropped. “Was he dangling that information about Mum on purpose too?”
I’d hesitated about playing the game before he informed me Mum was a star player. And he said Mum’s friend couldn’t talk until Tuesday when I’d expressly mentioned departing on Monday.
Is there any way you can extend your trip?
“Why?” I asked.
She lifted a shoulder. “Because you were his long-lost stolen daughter, I suppose. I didn’t ask at the time.”
“Were Wade and Cameron involved?”
“I saw them introduce themselves at the lake. You seemed to get on well, and I told Dad…”
Who then used Wade and Cameron too.
At least they’d had nothing to do with it. Rubbing my temples, I sighed. “There’s so much I want to ask him.”
“Do you ever wonder if he was training you all that time?”
I could lie to her. Jesus, this had to hurt her so much. I’d rolled in and pushed her off the podium in a matter of weeks.
Herc was the one to replace her, but I looked like the shitty person.
I had to conceal what happened with Sascha in Sandstone, but otherwise, I refused to disrespect Rhona that way. “The day we switched, Herc figured it out, but only told me after the meeting and asking me leadership questions.”
He’d expressed concerns about Rhona’s ability to lead the stewards on multiple occasions. Personally, I thought he was wrong on that count. What I’d give to switch with her now. Give me the role of advisor any day. Chuck me in an office somewhere. Anything that removed this terrible pressure to succeed.
“The date on the will was a week prior to his death,” she said quietly.
“I heard.” My heart hurt for her.
The date was unmissable. Seven days before Sascha snapped his neck, Herc changed his will to name me as heir. He’d only informed Pascal as she had to marshal the document, and she hadn’t said anything else on the matter thus far.
Rhona stared at her hands, and a familiar fury rose in me, creeping over my jaw.
“He loved you, Rhona. Never forget that. People fuck up.”
“That’s a big fuck up,” she whispered. “Why lie for so long and then spell out the truth in a will? He could have left it buried.”
Because I came back and started asking questions. “I think the answer has to do with why Mum and Murphy left with me. I want to find out what happened.”
“She wasn’t your mother.”
I swallowed against the stabbing pain under my ribs. “It’s hard to think of her as anything else yet.”
To go from Mum to Aunty Ragna seemed physically and mentally impossible. And to think of Aunty Savannah as Mother was stranger still. I’d made the switch from cousin to sister with Rhona, but we’d forged a bond prior to this mess that made that leap easy.
“Are you angry at her?”
My mind flashed to sitting with Mum in the garden. “I can’t feel more anger. If I could, I’d be angry at all three of them.”
They’d all lied. The person least to blame was ironically the person I’d blamed since three years old. Murphy.
“Ragna stole you though.”
“Savannah gave birth to me. Don’t you think it’s strange that none of the stewards saw a massive pregnant woman waddling around? How did no one know I existed? I mean, Mum fucked up too many times to count in my life, and I’m well aware of that. But something bigger is going on. People don’t just steal babies.”
Rhona rose, rounding the desk. “Have you searched in here? I haven’t. Maybe there’s something that could help us. A fifty-page letter detailing all the answers we want.”
I arched a brow. “Yeah, right. And I feel like an imposter sitting in this chair. So no.”
Rhona elbowed me out of the way. “Get over it. You’re the eldest. Tradition is tradition.”
This woman had an odd, kind of brutal way of lightening my heart. I opened the drawers to my left as she started on the right.
In the top drawer, I found a list of the stewards. That could come in handy. Digging underneath, I found another folder titled Importer Contacts.
Also handy.
The next drawer down was filled with stationery. The last drawer had a change of clothes and some toiletries. Couldn’t blame him. There was a definite pressure to appear put together in this position. Maybe I should do that too.
“What are these?” Rhona straightened from searching the bottom drawer, two books in her hand.
My mouth dried. “They look like the journals Mum used.”
She’d used a black, leather-clad journal each year. I’d read until age seventeen and assumed there weren’t more. Herc had purposefully concealed these.
Rhona handed them over.
The first was titled I’m 18 and the second I’m 19.
If Herc concealed these, the journals had to contain truths he hadn’t wanted me to learn.
“What’s wrong?” Rhona gripped my arm.
I hovered my fingers over the page corner of the first, arrested by fear. Mum left at nineteen with me and Murphy. Was I ready to learn the truth? “She lied to me so badly. She’s not even my mother, and I should hate her for pretending. But she was the only person I had. How could she do that to me?”
Why did she hurt me? Again and again.
And why did I always forgive her?
Since her death, wedge after wedge had been slammed between me and the memory of her. I couldn’t take another hit without losing her completely.
Rhona whispered, “I guess the answer is inside those journals.”
I cast her a look. “Herc kept these journals from me, Rhona. What if there’s something more in here? Something worse.”
I couldn’t fathom what could be worse, but anything was fucking possible at this point.
My sister paled.
Exactly.
I shut the cover. “I’m one blow from emotional knock out. We need to get through Grids this week. Whatever’s in here can wait.”
Until I could handle it.
“Just promise me, Andie, no matter what’s in there, you tell me. No matter how hard the truth is, I want it. I’m so sick of the lies.”
Guilt slammed into my chest. I inhaled slowly, hating myself. “I promise.”
3
I parked Ella F outside the riverside apartment. The short time spent living in town and making my own way at The Dens before werewolves existed haunted me.