“I said no, man. I don’t want anything more to do with this,” I said. “Besides, you don’t need me. The cops will get her phone and her license, they’ll reach out to you, and they’ll tell you everything—including who owns this car.
“Now, I’ve got to get out of here. You cool?”
“Uh, I— Yeah, I’m good.” Daniel sounded more than a little put out. “I get it. You’ve got your own shit. Go ahead and call. Let them get her out of there. I’m sure they’ll call me right after.”
“All right.” I hung up before he could say more.
Stepping back from the car, I stood there for a long time—staring down at my phone.
Just like that.
A picture and some silken-spun bullshit, and Daniel Mills was finally out of my life.
Or at least he will be until I return to the apartment building literally across the street from his diner, he sees me, and then he blows up at me for letting him believe I was dead.
Daniel’s pain always became my bruises, and this would be no different. He’d flood the internet with my flat ass to punish me. Of course he would, unless—
I never go back.
My breaths came too fast, heaving my chest against my tight top.
But I’ll have to go back,another voice argued.There are some things that not even dying will change about Omma, and in her mind, there’re no such things as accidents or mistakes. Someone is always to blame, and she’ll blame me for this. There’s no way she’ll let me stay.
A memory floated to my mind unbidden.
“The doctors have her on so many meds to stop the pain, they’re making her loopy and confused. Some days she doesn’t know what year it is or even who she is.”
I nodded slowly, letting the voice talk. Letting it whisper through myjangled mind.
She’s on hospice. She doesn’t have much time. If I can just keep her calm and happy for her time remaining. Tell her that Sue was away and she’d be back soon. In the meantime, she sent me here to be with her, so she wouldn’t be alone.
I can just keep repeating that story every time she asks until she drifts off to rest. And with Omma content and happy, she won’t notice that I’ve used the resemblance nature gave me to borrow a bit from Sue’s bank accounts, possibly to the tune of the trust and college fund she cost me with her psychotic prank. I won’t be taking more than what she already owes me,that voice whispered.
Besides, when Omma’s gone, everything will revert to me anyway—chiefly the manor. A manor worth a whole lot more than ten thousand dollars and an old car. All I’ll have to do is sell the place, and then I’ll have the money to go anywhere. Live anywhere—with my baby. There’ll be no reason at all to go back to Willingsworth.
“This could work,” I whispered. “This could really work.”
I lifted my head, my gaze piercing the gloom into the car, and then slowly moving to the direction of the cliffs. “This is my last gift and honor to you, big sister. The promise that from this point on, you will only be remembered as young, beautiful, and successful. Exactly the way you always wanted it.”
Chapter Four
“Walk us through what happened.”
I hung off the back of the ambulance, wincing when the paramedic came at me with the antiseptic.
“There isn’t much to tell,” I replied as he dabbed the gash on my forehead. “I was driving and a deer ran out into the road. I tried to swerve, but there wasn’t time. I hit the poor thing head-on, blacked out, and woke up with a busted car and bleeding head.”
The officer nodded, jotting down my account in his notebook. He was a short man with sandy hair, muddy eyes, and a dusting of freckles on his cheeks. Behind him, his partner circled the remains of the deer. “How fast would you say you were going?”
“Seventy-five.”
“And where were you headed?”
“Home.”
He opened the wallet he took out of the car. Unzipping it, he met my eyes—looking deep into my shifting gaze. “Can you confirm your name and address for me, please?”
“56 Coral Reef Road, Kim Manor. And my name... is Soo Min Kim.”
