Money?
She was about to have more than she knew what to do with.
Jewelry?
Edge would cut my fingers off and make me swallow them.
Flowers?
Maybe. But flowers died, and Destiny had seen enough dead things.
A knife?
She probably already had three and knew how to use them.
A necklace?
Too much.
A card?
Too little.
My head spun pleasantly and painfully at the same time. The tequila was doing what I had asked it to do and nothing I needed it to do.
A gift.
Not something that claimed her.
Not something that asked for a promise.
Something that said I saw her. I was there. That night mattered. You mattered. You still do.
I didn’t know what that was.
Maybe that was proof I had no business giving it.
The bottle slipped a little in my hand. I tightened my grip, took one last swallow, then set it in the sand beside me before Icould finish the whole thing and make tomorrow worse than it already was going to be.
The ocean breathed.
The palm leaves shifted overhead.
Somewhere behind me, laughter rose from the beach bar and faded again.
I told myself I was just resting my eyes.
Just for a minute.
But the ghosts were waiting.
This time, they didn’t come wearing my father’s work boots or my mother’s old perfume. They didn’t come as damp jeans, empty cabinets, Goodwill bins, or birthdays nobody remembered.
They came as her.
Beautiful Destiny.
Not the girl by the pool with sun-warmed skin and a bikini Regan had probably bought to torture me.
