There was no mention about Claire being in a relationship, or being blackmailed by a dead mother. There was no mention of anything else at all.
Her email is full of correspondence with parents and colleagues, nothing suspicious or personal, not even spam. I click through the deleted files and the spam files and still come up empty. She doesn’t even have a single image on her camera roll.
So, what it looks like is someone is using her dead mother’s phone to blackmail her for my father’s money?
Glancing up at the front door, I wonder why she hasn’t noticed her phone is gone and come storming back in here, demanding it back.
A sharp howling wind blows just outside the house, reminding me of the storm—the blizzard I just threw Claire out in.
Damn, what have I done? How cold-hearted can I be?
I grab up my coat and shove my arms through the sleeves. By the side of the door, on a small side-table, I find a hat with earflaps that I jam on the top of my head. A skin-crawling sensation creeps at the back of my neck, as I wonder which selfish dead person the hat might belong to. I shake the thought away and open the front door to the snowstorm. The scent of pine needles and ozone burns at my nose.
I rush out into the thick whiteness, my shoes sinking down through the icy snow. My socks are instantly soaked and the chill of them bite at my ankles. What the hell was I thinking coming out here in this? Even this coat isn’t heavy enough to withstand this kind of cold.
Claire raced out of the house like a madwoman before, she’s probably already far gone.
But up ahead, a few yards away, I catch a quick flash of taillights and hear the choking sounds of a car engine fighting to start.
She’s stuck in the snow.
I have to push myself to move. If I talk her out of that car, we’re stranded here together until the storm blows over and I don’t want to be anywhere near a Radcliffe. I don’t want to be alone with any crazy Radcliffe voodoo vagina magic she might throw my way.
I’m thinking crazy. She’s a woman stranded in her car in the snow.
I walk a few steps forward and thunder rumbles in the distance. Warning bells and red flags are screaming in my head, but I trudge through the snow anyway. I feel like a lamb being pulled to its slaughter. This woman is going to tell me information about my father that I’m going to hate hearing, and it’s going to make me despise the Radcliffe name a thousand times more than I do already.
The car window is fogged up, but I can still see through to the inside. Claire is leaning on the steering wheel, crying. Her shoulders are shaking, whether it’s from the cold or the intensity of her sobs, I’m not sure, but I pound my fists on the window to find out. Startled, she bounces away from the window. And when she looks up at me through the hazy glass and I see those red teary eyes, something in my chest breaks loose.
Chapter 8
Claire
My heart almost bursts out of my mouth when I notice Vaughn by the car. He’s covered in snow, the drifts swallowing his legs up to his calves.
“Open the damn door, Claire!” The side of his fist pounds against my window.
Not today, son of Satan. He could freeze into a stupid Montgomery money-sicle for all I care, I’m not letting him in. He just insulted me and kicked me out into a blizzard and now he wants to what? Talk? Invite me in for a fun little reunion? Start a Dead Parents Society? Continue to blame me because his mother got traded in for a newer model, again? Nope, not happening.
I turn the key in the ignition again. The dashboard lights flicker then die, and the engine laughs its click, click, clicking sound. I slam my palms on the steering wheel and bite back angry tears. Of all the days my car could turn on me, why does it have to be today?
“Come on, Claire,” his voice calls out.
If I ignore him, maybe he’ll just disappear.
Perfect idea.
I keep my eyes focused on the heavy white layer of snow that covers my windshield and count to twenty.
It doesn’t work. He’s still there.
I want to scream.
“Claire, it’s freezing out here. Open the door, now!” he shouts.
My body tenses and white-hot fire flushes through my body. What makes him think he can talk to me like that? “Leave me alone!” I explode. I slam my hand against the window over and over. My palm stings, but I don’t care. “You and your selfish father—your whole stupid family—you think you’re all so much better. Righteous. Superior. Fuck you, Vaughn. You can’t tell me what to do and you can’t talk to me like that either. Go away!”
Something clanks hard against the window, startling me. I don’t want to look, but it’s bright and illuminated and steals my attention instantly. It’s my cell phone. He’s holding the phone to the glass, and even though the view is dotted with snow and frost, I can make out the awful image of me. Naked. Doing something extremely pornographic.
An instant pounding drums in my ears.
He went through my phone? He invaded my privacy and went through my phone!
My vision blurs.
Vaughn saw that? He saw all those pictures. My skin suddenly feels like it’s covered with a thick layer of dirt and slime. I can hardly breathe. There’s a hard lump in my throat that I can’t swallow down.
I can’t believe he did this to me. How could he go through my phone?
I’m going to kill him!
His face pushes up against the window. The phone with the disgusting picture of me slides toward the front of the car, and his face is level with mine. “Claire?” he shouts through the glass. “What kind of trouble are you in? Come on, open the door and talk to me.”
Instead of doing what he asks, I roll the window three-quarters of the way down. Fat wet flakes come barreling in, melting wherever they land. I keep my gaze locked straight ahead, on the ridges of the steering wheel, and speak through clenched teeth. “I’m not in any trouble and I am very capable of taking care of myself if I was in any.” I shake my head and shove my hand out the window, palm up. “My phone, please.”
Vaughn plops the phone in my hand. It’s slippery and wet.
“Come back in the house with me,” he says in a steady voice. “You’re not driving in this storm.”
Rather than respond to the idiot, I try to start the car again. And again. And. Again.
My face burns hotter each time the engine clicks back at me.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
“You’re not going to start it, just stop! This car is so old you can manually roll down the windows, Claire. And even if you do get it started, you’re not making it down this mountain today, possibly not for a couple of days.”
I jerk my head in his direction and narrow my eyes at him. I refuse to be stuck in his father’s mountain-den of fornication with him. I study his face under that god-awful hat he’s wearing and I want to grab it off his head to warm myself up with. With the window open my seat is now soaking wet with slush and snow and I shiver more. “I’ll just have to stay in my car the entire time, then. Not an issue.”
“Claire, you’re going to freeze to death if you stay out here. You don’t even have your coat on!”
“Well, thanks for not bringing it with you, arrogant phone-snooping-peeping-tom asshat!” I’m so angry I could smack him. “Thanks for coming all the way out here after me, without my coat, just to show me that you went through my private belongings and found a dirty picture. Perv.”