My chin dips once. My throat feels packed with cotton.
“Where is your father?” The question hangs between us. “And does your mother have any relatives we can contact?”
My eyes dart past his shoulder, searching the cracked sidewalk, the street with its double-parked cars, the propped-open building entrance. Then I remember my siblings are at sleepovers tonight.
I shake my head slowly. “My dad's not—” The rest sticks in my throat. I swallow. “And no relatives. Not anymore.”
The cop's shoulders drop a half-inch. His eyes flick to his shoes—scuffed at the toes—then back to my face. His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip.
“Miss Hale,” he says, voice dropping to just above a whisper. “I'm very sorry, but your mother passed away.”
My fingertips go cold first. Then my palms. The chill spreads up my arms while my face feels hot, too hot, like I'm standing too close to an open oven. I blink three times, waiting for tears that don't come. My tongue feels thick, stuck to the roof of my mouth.
“How?” The single syllable scrapes my throat raw.
The cop's face crumples like wet paper. “It appears to have been an overdose.”
I nod.
“And I'm sorry,” he continues, his voice dropping to a whisper, “but if we can't locate a legal guardian, you and your siblings will be placed into foster care.”
Foster care.
My fingers go numb. The apartment door hangs open, spilling yellow light across the hallway floor. I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.
My jaw clenches so hard my teeth might crack. I want to scream at the stretcher, at those purple-painted fingernails.
How dare she make promises about groceries she'll never buy? How dare she leave us with nothing but an open door and strangers deciding where we'll sleep tonight?
My backpack strap digs into my shoulder, textbooks suddenly heavy as concrete. Through the doorway, I glimpse the kitchen calendar with its circled dates and scrawled reminders in my handwriting.
My hand finds the apartment key in my pocket, its familiar ridges pressing into my palm like a promise I can no longer keep.
Not for the first time, I find myself hating my mother.
1
BELLAMY
“If I’m everrich enough to forget a hundred and fifty grand in cash on my boat, I want you to slap me in the face,” my sister whispers, twisting a massive emerald ring so the marina spotlight fractures green light across the master berth.
The light flickers over the walls, too bright, too clean. I snort softly and shove another banded stack of bills into the backpack at my feet. The zipper rasps, loud in the quiet.
“Lola, if you ever have a couple-million-dollar yacht, maybe leaving a hundred and fifty grand lying around isn’t exactly . . .memorable.”
She grimaces but pops the ring free, fingers lingering like it hurts to let go. She tucks it into a hidden pocket sewn into her vest—the kind we built ourselves so jobs like this stay smooth, everything flat, everything close enough to protect with our bodies if it comes to that.
“Okay,” she says, voice tipping conspiratorially. “But remind me again why we’re not just stealingthis?” She gestures around the velvet-lined cabin. The bed, the polished wood, the quiet luxury humming under our feet. “The whole yacht. Three million, easy.”
The urge to sigh presses up my throat. I swallow it down and let the pressure sit there instead—hot, familiar, like a warning flare my body learned to light a long time ago. My sister has never met a boundary she didn’t want to poke.
I slide another stack of cash into my vest. My fingers know the motion by heart. “Because fencing jewelry is a hell of a lot easier than fencing a yacht registered to—” I tilt my chin toward the gold nameplate bolted to the bulkhead “—whatever offshore shell corporation Daddy Warbucks is hiding behind this month.”
Lola smirks. “So you’re saying no one would miss it.”
“I’m saying we’re here for the things we can move.” I cinch the zipper. “Quickly.”
She unzips another pocket and slips in a diamond-heavy bracelet; the stones catching even the low light like they’re trying to be seen. “You’re no fun.”
