What does it matter? She deserves it.
Still, it was hard to imagine Jo, terrified in her own home.
“Do it,” Sam said. “Call your goons.”
“Don’t,” Tabby blurted out. “I can find her.”
Everyone stared at her.
“How?” Sam demanded. “She gave you a fake name and paid in cash.”
Tabby hadn’t been withholding the information, at least not consciously, but she knew how they could find Jo. “She told me she’s doing oil commissions for Candour House. They’ll probably have her on the website. We can call if they don’t. Or go there.”
Icy tension ran through the room. Scott drummed his fingers on the tabletop, and Noah wrapped an arm around Nicole.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?” Sam said quietly.
“I… forgot?”
“JesusfuckingChrist, Tabitha.”
Tabby flinched, jerking backward in her chair and almost dropping the wine bottle.
“Sam!” Nix, Scott and Noah barked in unison.
Her oldest sister’s face crumpled. “Fuck, sorry.”
“S’fine,” she said, rubbing her chest. “S’allgood. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Sam leaned across the table with her hand out like God reaching out to Michelangelo’s David. “It’s not okay for me to talk to you like that. None of this is your fault. Seriously, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, that’s completely out of order,” Nix sniffed. “It isn’t your fault, Tabby.”
She frowned. Her family weren’t Matilda’s parents, but they weren’t super touchy-feely either. She and her sisters mostly talked to each other like equals, which neither was doing now. “Why are you both acting like this?” she asked. “I know this situation is all sorts of fucked, but why are you being strange?”
Sam and Nix exchanged looks.
“Maybe now isn’t the time,” Scott said gently.
Tabby shot to her feet. “Fuck that. The hell’s going on?”
“Tell her,” Noah muttered. “She deserves to know.”
Sam flashed Nix a ‘you do it’ glance, and her twin drew a deep breath. “You don’t remember, obviously, but after Mum left, things were… hard for you.”
“Weren’t they hard for all of us?”
“It was worse for you. You weren’t old enough to understand where Mum went. You stopped talking, you wanted us to carry you all the time, you started…”
“What?”
“Wetting yourself,” Nix said, a flush rising on her cheeks. “Sorry.”
“I don’t care about that! I wanna piss my pants right now! That doesn’t explain why you’re being soweird.” Tabby looked from Nix to Sam, and to her surprise, they both started crying. Actually crying with tears and sobs and stuff. She looked at Scott and Noah for an explanation and found them blank-faced and miserable.
“Seriously, what the fuck?Talk.”
Sam brushed a tattooed wrist across her face. “We didn’t think… it shouldn’t have been a problem because Deborah fucked off to Nowheresville… but now the bitch is back…” Sam turned away, her shoulders shaking so hard, her black hair rippled, and Nix buried her face in Noah’s shoulder.
