“Oh?” She raised a brow that was darker than the hair on her head. “Are we?”
“We are,” I said, voice firm but polite. “You believe so too, or you wouldn’t have come to my house Friday night.”
Her face shuttered closed. Of all the things she was prepared for me to say, I don’t think she was ready for that one.
“Come in.”
Looking back at Alex, I gave him a little thumbs-up, then stepped over the threshold.
The living room was small and cluttered. The couches, coffee table, end tables, and entertainment center were all too big for the space. A space made smaller by all the random gifts and knickknacks one accumulates over a long life.
I made to sit down but Mrs. Finley didn’t stop. She passed through the entrance off the living room, so I followed her—winding up in the kitchen.
Just like the living room, the kitchen was cluttered. Dirty pots and pans covered the stove and filled the sinks. Stacks of letters covered the kitchen island, and all of the available counter space was taken up by appliances, and pills. So many pill bottles that I stopped counting at fifteen.
Mrs. Finley crossed to the kettle and flicked it on. Her back was to me as she busied herself getting cups, tea bags, sugar, and spoons. I took that chance to sit down at the island.
“Say what you came to say,” she snapped.
“Oh, right.” I sat up straight, sucking in a deep breath. “I’m actually not sure how to begin, but here goes... You may or may not know that something horrible happened last Friday night. My mother was murdered and—”
“What’s so horrible about that?”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She turned around, slapping me with a glare that almost knocked me off the seat. “What’s so horrible about that rancid bitch getting exactly what she deserved?”
I gaped at her. “What the hell? Why would you say that? My mother wasn’t responsible for what her daughter did.”
“Yeah, and that’s exactly what she said to the judge.” She slammed the mug down, chipping the bottom. “Is that why you’ve come here? To tell meonce againthat since there’s no proof of parental neglect or a documented pattern of behavior that said parent failed to address, parental liability cannot be proven, and therefore your mother wasn’t at fault and had no obligation to pay.”
“What?” My mind was in knots trying to follow this conversation. “What are you talking about?”
“What else would I be talking about!” she screamed, blowing me back. “What else is there to talk about! For ten years, it’s been the same conversation, the same argument, the same fight, and a world that doesn’t listen! That doesn’t care! That doesn’t help!” Her eyes bugged out of her head. “Lord knows, I wanted to talk about something else for once—for one day! Well, I got my wish!” She burst into a hysterical, shrieking laugh that chaseda chill up my spine. “Now everyone can talk about something else, because Dana Finley is finally going to shut up!”
My eyes were huge. I was leaning back so far on my seat, one slight breeze and I’d topple off. “Mrs. Finley, I’m so sorry, but I truly don’t understand. Are you— Are you talking about the lawsuit from ten years ago?”
Her glare intensified—lips peeling back from her teeth.
“But I don’t understand,” I repeated. “Why would you be upset about that? My mother paid you.”
“Excuse me? Is that your new tactic?” she cried, disbelief coloring her tone. “Screaming at me that I was a worthless leech who wouldn’t get a cent out of you or your family wasn’t enough. Now you’re pretending we live in your delusional fantasy land!”
I could only gape at her, horrible understanding dawning. “She... never paid you.” My lips were numb. “My mother never paid the lawsuit. So, all this time...” I looked around the kitchen, then looked at her. “You’ve hated her.”
If possible, her snarl became even more feral. “Why shouldn’t I hate her? Why shouldn’t I hate the woman who stood up in court and argued that plastic screws or no, the trapdoor wouldn’t have given way if my son weren’tmorbidly obese! If I had done my job as a mother, kept him close and healthy, he wouldn’t have almost died from being too heavy for the floor to carry him.
“Why shouldn’t I hate the beast who claimed I was only using her toprofitoff my child’s misery? Who claimed if myvendettawas truly about holding the guilty party responsible, I’d have sued your sister, Sarah Kim,” she spat. “Well, fat chance of that when she disappeared! Shipped her back off to China—”
“Korea,” I sliced in automatically.
“—where she could hide away in another McMansion, pretending nothing ever happened, while me and Colin had nothing!” She thumped her chest, the pound resounding like her booming voice. “Your mother blamed everything and everyone else except herself... for raising two spoiled cunts who should’ve been strangled by their umbilical cords and shat into a toilet upon birth.”
I pressed my lips tightly together, breathing slow through my nose. She was trying to provoke me. If she really hated and wanted nothing to do with me, she wouldn’t have let me through the door.
Was all of this deliberate? Was she trying to provoke me into striking first so that she’d have an excuse to kill me like she killed—
“Is that why you did it?” I asked. “Is that why you killed my mother?”
