I wonder if Addisyn will be punished for hiding pieces of Piper’s diary or applauded for it.
It’s difficult to know what, or who, to believe.
It shouldn’t matter. I’m done.
With the noose of Piper’s last words wrapping around my neck, I don’t want to think about the Virtues anymore.
A light knock on my door distracts my thoughts, and I pad over to it while dabbing the corners of my mouth with my sleeve.
A light, feminine voice yells, “Surprise!” when I open the door, and my traumatized self almost ducks and covers at the sound.
“Lynda!” I say tremulously, stepping aside to let her and my dad in.
I take note of their matching Thanksgiving shirts under their open winter coats, Lynda’s saying, “Momma’s Cooking a Turkey” over her bump, and my dad’s reading, “I Put the Turkey in the Oven.”
“Nice outfits,” I say, a smile playing at the corners of my lips while internally mortified.
“We know we were supposed to meet you at the lunch picnic, but Lynda couldn’t resist coming up here and surprising you,” Dad says.
“It looks exactly the same.” Lynda rubs her baby bump in awe as she turns in a slow circle.
“You went here?” I ask.
Lynda turns her head to mine. “Well, sure, honey. How’d you think I snuck you in?”
She smiles and chucks under my chin before wandering around and peeping in first Emma’s, then my room. “Where’s your roommate?”
“Oh, she’s uh, at her family’s lake house,” I say, at the same time my dad widens his eyes at his wife to shush.
I guess they still think my dead ex-roommate is a sensitive topic. Oh, if only they knew.
“How about we go find a good table, huh?” my dad says with forced cheer, trotting after his wife and gently steering her to the front door.
“Great idea,” I say, and follow them out.
I’m in Briarcliff sweats and a T-shirt, but I’m not feeling up for dress-up, and Dad and Lynda haven’t even noticed. Perhaps they think I’m waiting for tonight to go balls-out and get into turkey spirit now that my punishment’s lifted, when really, all I’m going to do is crawl into bed and pray my dreams don’t involve my dead mom.
After grabbing my coat, we take our time walking from Thorne House to the academy, mostly because Lynda waddles more than she strides. She thwarted Dad’s multiple attempts to bring the car around with a crazed look in her eye—I will walk, damn it, Pete. This baby’s taken enough of my body. Do not take my feet—so the three of us wander, side-by-side, pointing out pretty pieces of landscaping and gorgeous masonry and stonework around the property.
The small talk is slowly strangling me to death. I can’t stand beside my dad without asking the question that’s been buzzing in my ears and building its hornet’s nest in my throat. “Dad?”
Dad glances down at me. “Hmm?”
“Did Mom ever cheat on you with my biological father?”
Lynda’s feet scrape against the concrete. Her hand flutters to her stomach. “Oh, Jesus.”
My stepdad pales at the question but launches into action when Lynda looks like she’s about to keel over. “Honey? What is it? The baby? Contractions?”
“No.” Lynda lifts her hand. “Golly, no. Callie surprised the shit outta me is all.”
I raise my brows.
Dad goes to Lynda, anyway, holding a tentative hand against her stomach and wrapping his other arm around Lynda’s waist. “It, uh, maybe now’s not the time, Cal.”
Lynda’s lips thin. She doesn’t budge when Dad nudges her forward. “Peter. She’s asked you a question.”
“I…” Dad sighs, digging his fingers into his thinning hair.
“I guess that’s answer enough,” I say, my stomach turning to stone.
“Cal. Hun. Look at me.”
Dad’s surprisingly hard tone draws my head up. “It has nothing to do with you. Do you understand me? Your mother loved you. I love you.”
“But how can you?” My face crumples, and I hate how my vision smears with tears. “After all I’ve done? After what Mom did?”
“Honey.” Dad releases Lynda and stumbles up to me, bending until he’s in view. His hands clamp around my arms, shaking gentle sense into me. “Meredith didn’t deserve to die, and you don’t deserve to live a life without a mother and father. She was a flawed human being, and when I found out about the affair, I didn’t handle—” He stops, emotion clogging his throat. “I didn’t deal with it the way I should’ve. I lashed out at her, and I terrified you.”
“Oh my God.” His meaning turns my face numb and cold. “Is that the fight I overheard? You found out about the affair?”
“Callie, baby.” Dad holds my cheeks. “Yes. I found out she was seeing this man for years, well before me and well after meeting me. But you were right. I’m going to repeat that: You did the right thing. I should’ve been a suspect, and I should’ve been held and questioned. And it’s because of that arrest that the police found out there was another guy. You did a good thing. Okay?”
“I attacked you,” I say, meeting his eye with trembling lips. “When you came home, I tried to hurt you. Badly.”
“You weren’t yourself, Cal. Your mom’s death hit you so, so hard, and I didn’t understand it at time. I thought you had no idea. I was floored when you accused me, but I’ll never hate you for it.”
“But I turned on you.” I step out of his hold, and his face falls at the distance. “I became the worst daughter in the world. Partying, drugs, ignoring curfew, screaming at you, cussing at you, wanting you to die instead of my mom, and you…?”
“I said I loved you, Callie. That kind of vow means I’ll be there for you even at your worst.”
“No.” I clutch at my temples, unable to mix this version of Pete Spencer with the one that’s been in my head the whole time. “You hit my mom.”
“I did. And I pay for it every damned day.”
Lynda comes up beside him, her cheeks streaming tears, but she takes his hand.
“You put me in the psych ward,” I rasp.
“I did. It was either that or lose you, Callie. The court was coming for me, saying I wasn’t fit to be a father to you, and I … you’d lost control. I didn’t know how…” Dad stops, the thickened emotion in his voice making it difficult to continue, but he blinks and forges on, his voice in tatters. “I had no idea how to move us out of our rotten existence. All I knew is that I didn’t want to lose you as well as your mother. You had a home with me. I’m sorry—I’m so sorry I didn’t say that to you every day, but even when you were in the hospital, you had a home. I wasn’t going to give you up, and I promised myself to be a better man, a better father, than the one I was turning into.”
“Dad…” I say.
“Callie,” Lynda whispers, her lower lip shaking. She opens her arms. “Come here. Please. This doesn’t change one bit of your position in our family, okay? You’re this baby’s sister. Her beautiful, admirable sister.”
She means to draw me closer, but instead, I’m drifting away. My voice takes on a raw edge. “I could be someone else’s sister. Was this man, this guy Mom kept seeing, my father?”
Dad shakes his head forlornly. “I don’t know that, honey.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Again, he shakes his head. “The night you overheard … she refused to tell me his name. I was hoping, after I admitted it while in police custody, Ahmar could track him down.”
My voice cracks into shards. “Ahmar knew?”
“Callie.”
My name is sent out into the air with such sharp, ragged undertones, that I draw back. But my dad won’t let me. He envelopes me into his arms, hugging me so tight I can only take small breaths.
“You’re my daughter,” he whispers into my ear. “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
His laments repeat into my skin, dampen my hair, and he doesn’t let go. He keeps holding on until I wrap my hand
s around him, until I’m sobbing, too, and for the first time in over a year, I’m hugging the man who stepped into the role as my father nine years ago.
“I didn’t show you before,” he says. “You were suffering, and I wasn’t doing enough to help you. I know that know. And I will fight for you always.” I’ve never heard him cry before, and it’s wrenching. “You belong here, with us. I don’t want our wretched past to define our relationship. I want this baby to see you as a sister, and Lynda to see you as a daughter, and for you to see us as a family. Could you do that? Can we try?”
His tone comes in broken waves, and with each crest, I’m pummeled, sobbing harder at his words. My fingers claw into his back as I pull him closer, and added, fragrant pressure against my side tells me Lynda’s joined the hug, too.
“I can try,” I whisper, so low I doubt they’ll hear.
I am so, so tired of being alone, and my baser instinct recognizes this as a pivotal turning point—if I deny them, then from now on, I’ll be orphaned by choice.
One day, I’ll have to forgive my mom for what she did, and although I know it won’t come soon or be easy, I’m certain it will happen. Because she was my mother.
If I can’t give my stepdad the same consideration, what does that make me?
I’ll tell you: it makes me someone who can’t keep love.
“Oh, sweetie.” Dad kisses my wet temple while Lynda dampens the other side of my head.
They heard me.
Something bumps against my side, and I pull away enough to look down, because all our arms are around our shoulders. “What was that?”
Lynda laughs, then rests a hand on her belly. “That’s Blair saying hello. Do you want to feel it again?”
My eyes stretch wide.
Lynda’s lips pull into a shimmering smile. “She’s not an alien. Well, I’d argue she’s more of a parasite, but go on. Put your hand right here.”
I hesitantly lift my hand, pressing it right over turkey baby’s red cartoon heart.
Another bop against the middle of my palm. And another.
“Holy crap,” I say.
“Callie, meet your baby sister. She’s going to annoy the crap out of you,” Lynda says.
I grin up at her, my joy filled with snot and tears, but tangible.
Lynda kisses my cheek, then says to both me and Dad, “Enough blubbering. We’re going to miss the turkey roast, and you do not want to know me if I don’t get my daily meat intake.”
We fall back in line and walk close for the rest of the way to the academy.
For the first time since losing Mom, I can’t help but think, maybe this cross-stitched family heart doesn’t have to feel so knotted anymore.
The picnic area put together around the wolf fountain behind the school is packed with students, parents, guardians, professors, and all kinds of standing heat lamps, and I manage to score us a recently vacated picnic bench while Dad goes and fills our plates.
“Take a seat,” I say to Lynda while gathering dirty paper plates and cups. “I’m just gonna toss these.”
Lynda doesn’t argue, choosing to plop onto the bench with a prolonged groan.
I meander through the crowd, passing the makeshift stage near the wolf-barf fountain where the Music Club has set up their rock band. They’re going for the family-friendly vibe and playing soft rock.
The clotted crowds of people choosing to stand rather than sit cause me to zig and zag to the closest trash can, and I let out a squeak of sound when I’m on top of Chase’s table before I can safely retreat.
Every single pair of eyes looks up at me. The stone in my stomach gains more cinder-blocks the longer I’m frozen in place.
Chase is the closest, and his face changes when he notices me, an inscrutable pain flashing through his features before he glances away. Emma stares hard with her implacable aim, while Daniel Stone and his estranged first wife, Chase and Emma’s mother, look on curiously.
Sadly, they’ve also decided to sit with the Harringtons.
Those cinder-blocks become body weights sinking me to the bottom of the ocean.
I can’t look at Mr. Harrington, at the same time I do, but I cut my gaze away before any emotion flickers across my face. I’m surprised at the lack of feeling when I meet his eye for one meager second. I’m not shocked at the numbness, because it’s already been an emotionally draining day, but in that short time, his features were seared into my mind—burnished hair shot with gray, blue-green eyes, tanned skin and the faint lines of a crow’s feet smile around his eyes, which I’m sure would crinkle further if he actually moved his lips.
I see him. I note our similarities. Our vast differences.
And I feel … nothing.
My skirted gaze lands on Addisyn, who gives me a benign smile, fluttering her fingers in a mocking wave, and Mrs. Harrington, soon-to-be Mrs. Stone, a platinum blonde with dark skin, sits regally at the end, squinting as she tries to place me.
Addisyn purrs, “Mom, Dad, I’d like you to meet Briarcliff’s newest student, Calla Lily Ryan. Mr. Stone, Miss Loughrey, have you met her?”
Chase’s dad murmurs something and shakes his head, but doesn’t take his eyes off me. And if Ice Queens were real, I would’ve been petrified into a statue from Mrs. Harrington’s gaze alone.
Mr. Harrington—my possible father—clears his throat. “I … I don’t believe we have.”
“Perhaps … Calla Lily, is it? … should be seated with her own family,” Mrs. Harrington says, while her eyes politely communicate fuck the hell off.
The barest brush tickles my waist, and I glance down to see Chase’s hand retreating to his lap, but it couldn’t possibly have been him offering reassurance. He’s ignored me for days and will probably resume pretending I don’t exist once I leave the table.
I’m not sure what kind of warped family arrangement I’ve stumbled into, but I’m more than happy to prevent this confrontation from happening right on the heels of my healing session with my stepdad.
“It was nice … to meet you,” I force out, refusing to include Mr. Harrington. “I’m just gonna—”
“Addisyn Harrington?”
The rough voice of authority catches my attention, and I blink at the ensuing scene, unsure if it’s real.
Detective Haskins leads the way through the mingling picnic-goers, with three cops coming up behind him, the crowd parting with whispers and gasps as he stops at the table.
Annoyance flashes across Addisyn’s face before she turns. “Yeah?”
“What’s this about?” Mr. Harrington asks.
Mrs. Harrington rises at the same time her ex-husband does, and though she’s a head smaller, her very essence fizzles out any authority Mr. Harrington tries to gather.
She can fell a man with her stare, and she directs all that power at Detective Haskins. “State your position immediately, Detective, because I’ve already called our lawyers.”
“Happy to.” Haskins positively beams, immune to Mrs. Harrington’s intimidation. “Addisyn Harrington, you’re under arrest for suspicion of first-degree murder of Piper Harrington…”
Whispers turn to shouts. Gasps turn to screams.
Someone claps.
“What?” Addisyn shrieks, but doesn’t move. Haskins decides to help her by pulling her hands behind her back.
“Get your hands off my daughter, you deplorable man!” Mrs. Harrington bellows, flipping her jacket lapels back as she strides around the table to get to her remaining daughter. Her face is so frozen in fury, it trembles.
Haskins replies, without looking up, “Don’t you come near me, ma’am, or else I’ll cuff you, too.”
Mrs. Harrington turns redder than Ivy’s feathered turkey ass. “How dare you—”
“Sabine,” Mr. Harrington says, grabbing his former wife’s arm. “Perhaps you should let the man do his job. We’ll call our lawyers, and—”
“You pathetic, miserable turd!” she hisses at her husband. “Your daughter is being arrested,
and your other daughter is dead. DO SOMETHING!”
Mr. Harrington fumbles in his jacket for his phone, but Daniel Stone beats him to it.
“I’m Addisyn’s lawyer. Show me the papers,” he bellows, his hand darting out.
Haskins gestures to the officers behind him, who hands Mr. Stone the warrant.
In an attempt to take in more than the central scuffle, I glance first at Chase, who seems just as bemused as me, then at Emma, catching her eye in a way that tells me she’s been watching me this entire time.
She smiles.
I clear my throat of the slime that crawls to its base, mouthing, What the fuck?
But she shakes her head. Now isn’t the time.
I, however, can’t close my mouth. Was I just bamboozled by her again?
“Callie,” Chase says, and I jolt at his sudden presence at my side. “We need to leave. Before this gets out of hand.”
“I’m just standing here,” I say. “What could possibly happen to me—”
And as if I asked for it, Mrs. Harrington lands her steely gaze on me. “You.”
“Now, Sabine…” Mr. Harrington says, throwing a hand between us.
I frown at my supposed, maybe father, at his utter weakness in this situation. Yes, humans are flawed, and yes, his youngest daughter is a kin-killer, but shouldn’t he be handling this with a bit more rage right now? Instead he’s … oh, man. The word hits me between the eyes.
He’s unsurprised. By any of this.
“We’re leaving. Now,” Chase commands, then drags me back.
We’re through the crowd and near the edges before I comprehend my hand in his, our fingers entwined. “Chase…”
He tears from my hold, his warmth retreating as fast as if I doused his flames with lake water. “Go be with your family.”
I gape at him. “You can’t possibly expect me to—Did you know about this? What your sister planned? How did the police know to arrest Addisyn? Why have they made it so public?”
Chase lets out a frustrated sigh but doesn’t push me back into the crowd. “I read a piece of the warrant as my dad held it. They have the diary pages, Callie.”
I hesitate, but persist. “Are they enough? Is the arrest going to stick? Or is it more of a Dr. Luke situation where she’ll be released by fancy lawyers, like your dad—”
Virtue (Briarcliff Secret Society Series Book 2) Page 23
