“The money wasn’t there,” I say, climbing out of the driver’s seat.
Bridger exhales hard, his face going blank for a moment before he moves to the steps and sinks heavily onto the porch.
Marlowe finally moves, unbuckling her seatbelt, stepping out of the carslowly, as if her body isn’t fully connected to the moment.
The front door creaks open. Cody steps out, frowning. His eyes flick between the three of us.
Bridger runs a hand over his face and looks up at me. “So now what?”
I don’t have an answer. I don’t know what the hell to do.
Marlowe stares down at the deck of cards in her hands. She doesn’t blink, doesn’t look at me, doesn’t look at anyone. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, flat, like something inside her has been cut out and there’s nothing left to fill the space. “Call Joel,” she says. “Tell him. Let him kill the fucking bastard.” She turns and walks into the house, the door creaking open, her steps dragging over the worn floorboards before it clicks shut behind her.
Cody lets out a sharp breath. “What the hell?” He pushes off the porch railing and follows her inside, his boots thudding against the wood.
I stay where I am, staring at the ground, sweat slick on my back. Then I sit down hard next to Bridger.
He doesn’t say anything at first, just keeps looking at the door, his knee bouncing slightly, fingers rubbing at the stubble on his chin. His face is tight, drawn in a way that tells me he’s working something through, trying tomake sense of it.
Finally, he speaks. “I really don’t think she was in on this.”
I stare ahead, my muscles wound too tight to move. The anger is still there, but it isn’t clean anymore. It isn’t simple. “So her father wanted her dead?” My voice comes out sharp, bitter.
Bridger exhales through his nose, shakes his head. “Come on, bro. We both know how shitty fathers can be.”
The thought hits like a slow, deep ache. I swallow hard, my throat tight. I can’t sit here and do nothing. I push myself up, my legs feeling heavy, my mind sharp with too many questions. I need answers. I need to know if she was telling the truth, if she really thought her father had the money, if she really believed she was bringing that money back to save them.
I step inside the house. Cody is on the couch, sprawled out next to Delilah, who is watching something low on the television, her eyes distant. A cup of tea sits beside her, untouched. A cookie rests on a napkin, whole, like she forgot it was there.
I scan the room once,twice, looking for Marlowe, but she isn’t here. Rage spikes through me, hot and fast. My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to. “Where the fuck is she? Did she run?”
Cody lifts his head, his expression heavy with exhaustion. “Relax. I told her she looked like something out of a slow cooker and to take a shower.”
I storm down the hallway toward the back of the house, my footsteps loud against the old floorboards. The closer I get, the more I can hear it, the rush of water. I stop at the bathroom door and try the knob. It isn’t locked. I push it open.
Steam fills the small space, curling against the mirror, softening everything except the sound.
She’s crying.
I step forward, the sound pulling something deep inside me.
The shower runs hot, streaming down over her as she sits in the tub, her back hunched and bright red, her body rocking slightly, her shoulders shaking.
She doesn’t notice I’m here.
She isbreaking apart, and she doesn’t even know she has an audience.
I don’t make a move. I should walk away, but of course I don’t. I can’t. The steam thickens, curling against my skin, dampening my shirt, filling the space between us. The sound of the water hitting the porcelain is steady, unbroken, but beneath it, her.The soft, uneven hitch of her sobs.
She shifts, her body slowing, the rocking stopping. Then, after a long pause, she pushes herself up. She stands under the stream, her head tilted forward, water rolling down the curve of her back, over the dip of her waist. Her hands rise, slow and fluid, pushing through her soaked hair, her arms stretching, her body arching just enough to make itimpossible to look away. Heat flits through my spine, twisting lower.
Her fingers slide over her skin, down the slope of her neck, across her collarbone, tracing the lines of her own body like she’s washing something off that isn’t just dirt.
I should turn around and give her privacy. I don’t, though. I watch.
I watch the slow drag of her hands over her arms, the curve of her breasts, the way the water glides down her skin in rivulets.
She runs her fingers lower, down her thighs, across her hips, each movement measured, deliberate.
