“Oh jeez.”
“I’m not sure. She just seems a little scared. A lot scared, actually. Yet determined to fight it too.” He sighed. “She’s really interesting.”
“Well, any girl who has you turning down a woman in your own home captures my interest too.”
He grinned. It was nice having his brother around. “Thanks, bro.”
“Maybe you’re finally growing up.”
Oliver lightly punched Dane on the shoulder. “Now you’re being mean.”
Chapter 15
The second the bus doors opened, Regi jumped out and ran full speed toward home. His heart was in his throat and his mind was a fucked-up scramble as he tried to prepare for the mayhem he was about to see. If his mother’s hysterical tirade could be trusted, then someone had messed up their home, big time.
And Regi knew exactly who that someone was.
Carson.
Well, not exactly Carson—he’d never lift a finger. It’d be Pope and his band of goons. He’d been both relieved and pissed off when he’d found out he hadn’t killed Pope with that brutal uppercut.
After the crash, he’d shot out of there like a pellet-shot rabbit. But the location of the race track had him trapped between a mile of warehouses and endless ocean, and there was nowhere to run. He’d found a metal-rung ladder that led down to the water’s edge, and as he’d clung to it, trying not to pass out from the pain in his ribs, he’d watched people flock to the wreck and Pope’s lifeless body. It was a good forty minutes before Pope sat up. The whole time Regi was torn between horror that he may’ve killed someone and joy that the asshole was dead.
That was three weeks ago. Trouble was, Pope’s vendetta was now personal. He’d been stalking Regi like a famished hyena, and he’d used Regi as a punching bag at every opportunity. Ironically, Regi was pretty certain Carson was the only thing keeping him alive, because Pope could’ve killed him a dozen times over since the night of the race.
Regi smacked his tumbling thoughts aside, fisted his hands, and pumped his arms in perfect coordination with his feet. He’d had good practice running for his life in the last couple of years. Even though there was no one on his tail right this minute, he felt the same life-or-death pressure. Regi had convinced his mother not to call the police until he got there. Whether or not she’d listened was another question.
About ten minutes after he’d started running, he was relieved to see his street free of police cars. He raced up his driveway and pushed open the front door. It slammed so hard against the wall one of the paintings fell off and shattered onto the tiles. But then he noticed the other four pictures were in broken bits on the floor too.
“Mom? Mom, where are you?” He stepped over splintered wood and glass shards.
“I’m in here.”
He followed her voice to the kitchen, and along the way gawked at the damage around him. Furniture was upturned, ornaments and pictures were smashed. Stuffing from cushions was strewn everywhere. The extent of the mess had him wondering if the intruders had been looking for something, though he had absolutely no idea what that could be.
Long dark streaks of makeup stained his mother’s cheeks, yet she appeared to have stopped crying. He wrapped his arms around her. “Are you okay?”
She squeezed him and shook her head. “No. I can’t believe it.”
“I know. Did you call the police?”
“Not yet, I was waiting for you.” His relief made his knees wobble. The last thing he needed was the cops breathing down his neck too. Carson had made enough threats about what would happen should Regi ever contact the police.
And Regi was pretty certain Carson had a few cops on his payroll.
Every cupboard in the kitchen was open, and it looked like the thugs had just shoved their hands in and scooped everything onto the floor. Broken china littered the tiles.
Her handbag was on the table, and Regi spied the small plastic bag open in an inside pocket. Whatever pills she’d taken had probably helped her stop crying.
“Sit down, Mom.” He directed her to a chair. “I’ll have a look around. Did you notice anything stolen?”
She sank into the dining room chair and tugged her bag forward. “All my jewelry is gone. Except what I was wearing.” She twisted the diamond rings around her fingers and stared at the jewels like she was seeing them for the first time.
Regi had seen this expression on his mother dozens of times. She was close to falling down the rabbit hole. Maybe this stint would be a blessing. By the time she woke up, he could have everything cleaned up. He could even call the insurance company and see about making a claim. Maybe they could get a new TV. That’d be sweet. Something good to come of something shitty.
“Hey, Mom, what’s the name of our insurance company?”
She blinked at him as if she’d forgotten he was there. Then her mouth twisted into a scowl. “No insurance.”
“What? Why not?” He knew for a fact that his mother used to have insurance, because she’d claimed on it when their roof was messed up in a storm last year.
“No more money.” She did an overexaggerated shoulder shrug. “All gone.”
As far as he knew, his mother had never had money troubles. She’d always had work, and even when she didn’t, money was never in short supply. They didn’t live extravagantly, they were just…comfortable. “What’re you talking about?”
“He stopped paying.”
He frowned and touched her shoulder. “Who?”
“Milton.” Their eyes met and she let out an enormous sigh. “Your father.”
Regi did a double take. This was the first time she’d ever mentioned his name.
“He paid you money?”
She nodded and opened her eyes wide. “But we were bad.”
He pulled out a chair. The ransacked house was about to take a back seat. If his mother was ready to chat about his father, then he was ready to listen. He placed his hand on her forearm, hoping the touch wouldn’t heave her from her talkative mood. “Tell me, Mom.”
“I loved him, you know.”
“I know,” he lied. He knew nothing about him, let alone their relationship.
“He was so handsome, and smart. Rich too. A man who was truly going places.”
It was funny, for years Regi had formed a mental image of the scumbag “sperm donor.” He’d pictured him nearly bald and overweight. Not just fat, but really pudgy and unhealthy, with pasty skin that he hid beneath brown baggy clothes. He’d pictured him working away in a dingy office with no windows and suffering through a lifetime of boredom. Regi had thought the image was perfect for a man who didn’t want anything to do with his own son.
“What happened?”
She shrugged and rolled her eyes. “His wife happened.”
“He was married?”
“Yep.”
He frowned. “Did you know that?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Her chin dimpled. “Yep. But she was really mean to him.”
Regi cringed at how pathetic she sounded. “How’d you meet?”
She smacked her lips together and glided her hand across the table, then sat back in her chair as if she’d come to a conclusion. But it was a long moment before she eyeballed him and cleared her throat. “I was just eighteen. Milton was much older. Eighteen years older, actually. I thought he was the most incredible man in the world. He was my boss. He owned the company and he was very successful. Really going places.” She sighed.
Regi thought about Thomas, her new boss, and how ironic it was that history was repeating itself.
“Milton traveled the country, you know, flitting from one fancy hotel to the next. He took me with him when he could. Vegas, New York, L.A.” She heaved another sigh, as if struggling to feed her lungs. “We were so in love.”
Regi tried but failed to picture his mother with a
man that she truly loved. It seemed to him that Milton was a user and she’d fallen for his fancy shit. He resisted commenting, though, and waited for her to continue.
“His wife caught us. She showed up at our hotel in Chicago. It was horrible.”
Regi touched her arm, trying to portray sympathy he didn’t feel.
“She told Milton to get rid of me or she’d take him for everything he had. It wasn’t fair—he’d built the business from scratch and she just wanted to waltz in and take the whole thing.”
Regi refrained from pointing out that she probably had every right to do that.
“But then I found out we were pregnant. It was the best and worst day of my life.” When she looked at him, Regi saw distress in her eyes, but for the first time he didn’t pity her.
“You deserved so much more,” she said. “I wish you’d had a chance to know him; he would’ve been the perfect father. But Milton and I made a pact. He looked after us, making sure we always had money. We were careful too; he paid me every month in cash…so there was no paper trail.”
Every month. Cash. His mind spun. Then it hit him. “You kept seeing him?”
She nodded and lowered her eyes. “Right up until he died.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“He’s dead?” Not once had Regi considered that his father would be dead.
“Yes. He died in a helicopter crash in Canada.”
“Canada?”
She sighed and wriggled her head like it was all floppy. “He took his fiancée and son for a vacation.”
“What the fuck? He was engaged, and had a son? I have a brother?”
Her eyes rolled and Regi feared she was about to fade away.
“Did. You did have a half brother, but Kane’s dead too. They’re all dead.”
As he glared at her, a million questions bolted through his brain at once. “When? When did they die?”
She went cross-eyed. “About four years ago. That’s why I have no more money. It’s all gone.”
Regi clutched her wrist and shook it. “What money?”
“The cash he gave me, silly. Five thousand every month. He never missed a payment.”
“Five thousand,” he gasped. “Holy shit, where is it?”
She pointed to the decorative tin that was now on the floor in the corner. The lid was nowhere to be seen. Regi had been walking past that tin for years and had never thought twice about it. He turned back to his mother and her eyes grew so wide he was worried they’d pop right out of her head. “Seven thousand. That was all I had left. Now it’s all gone.”
Regi frowned at the tin, trying to comprehend that she’d been stashing money in there all this time. He turned back to her. “You kept money in that stupid tin?”
“Yep. Milton said no paper trail. Always a secret.” She put her finger to her lips. “Shh.” Her head flopped to the side and her eyes fluttered closed.
“What about his estate? Did he leave you anything?”
“No paper trail, remember? You’re so silly.”
“But…did you fight it?”
“No proof.” She wobbled her head side to side. “Not even a photo. Now he’s dead.”
Regi shook her arm. “Mom. Mom.”
But she’d slipped into drug-induced oblivion.
Regi got up and paced the room. His boots crunched on china shards as he strode from one end to the other. His brain flew from one thought to the next. This revelation created as many questions as it did answers.
Now he understood how his mother always had money. It also explained why she’d hit a whole new level of depression four years ago.
Five thousand dollars! Each month. Cash!
Bitch.
Half that money was his. And she’d snorted it up her nose. If she’d been awake, he would’ve shook her until her bones rattled. Not that it would’ve mattered. The money was gone.
His mother groaned, rolled her head sideways, and smacked her lips together. He’d always thought of her as the victim. In his mind, she’d been the innocent one in the relationship with his father. But she was just as much to blame as he was. To have kept their affair going all these years, especially when Milton was married, then engaged, and had a kid? It was totally fucked-up.
I have a half brother? Had a half brother.
Regi strode to her bedroom with the intention of going through her drawers to find something, anything, to confirm her statements were true. He couldn’t even push her door open. There was shit everywhere. Clothes, shoes, underwear, papers. Every drawer had been upended and the clothes in the closet tossed out. The pillows had been slit open and bits of fluff covered everything. He once again wondered if the thugs had been looking for something, and now that he understood the extent of his mother’s lies, he wondered if they’d found it.
Five thousand dollars every month.
He couldn’t get the figure out of his mind. Milton was rich. That’s what his mother had said. To have a wife, a fiancée, and a mistress that he’d paid off for twenty-odd years… He must’ve been extremely wealthy. And the helicopter ride in Canada. That wouldn’t have been cheap.
An idea hit him like a thunderbolt. If Milton was his dad, then surely Regi had a claim to his estate.
All he had to do was prove Milton was his father.
Chapter 16
Four months later
Amber breathed in the crisp air, let it out in a cloudy plume, and tried not to focus on the flurrying snow crystals that landed on every available surface. She’d given up wiping it from her legs. Instead, she wedged her hands between her thighs, trying to ward off the cold that was determined to invade her fingers.
In the five months she’d been coming to Altitude Mountain Resort, she’d grown accustomed to the cold. Not her feet and hands, though—they still felt frozen to the bone every time. Maybe it was the expensive thermal clothing she had beneath her ski gear, which Kelli had helped her choose. Or maybe it was her determination that had put her body’s issues aside so she could concentrate on her mission. Either way, she’d come to enjoy her weekends on the mountain with the eternally effervescent Kelli.
The chairlift they were riding was the longest on the mountain, taking them up to the only black run, and Kelli had been speaking almost nonstop since their chair had left the terminal eight minutes ago. Amber had no idea how Kelli did it. If her stories were to be believed, and Amber did believe them, then Kelli partied until nearly four o’clock this morning. Yet she somehow managed to be outrageously excited to see Amber at their regular nine o’clock start.
Amber would have been in bed at nine, ensuring she was ready for the next day. Although Kelli was only two years younger, she was a thousand years away in every other aspect. By the time they reached the top, Amber was exhausted listening to what Kelli did up until just five hours ago.
They pushed off the chair and settled at the edge of the slope to survey down the mountain toward where the resort should be. But it wasn’t there; a cloud as thick as sponge had shrouded it completely.
“Looks like we’re in for a bit of a snowstorm.” Kelli said it ridiculously chirpy, like she’d been talking about a nail polish color rather than something that looked like it’d give them a good lashing.
Amber had only experienced two days of poor weather since she’d started visiting this mountain, and both of those she’d spent inside, curled up by the fire, scouring the internet for information about Angel and Frederick.
“Ready?” Amber adjusted her ski mask.
“I guess so.”
“Course, you are, we’ve done it tons of times.”
That was true. This five-mile ski run was classed as black at the top because of its initial steep vertical descent, which included a few moguls. It leveled out to a cruisy red run that took a wide berth around the resort and hit black run steepness again. At the bottom they�
��d ride a surface lift back up to the resort. The first time she’d done it, Amber had been petrified and had spent most of the descent on her bum. But thanks to Kelli’s insistence she’d done it at least a dozen times since then, and each time was an improvement on the last.
“Come on, I’m getting hungry.” Kelli gave Amber a playful shoulder nudge.
Side by side, they glided their skis over the edge and set off down the slope. The familiar rush of adrenaline coursed through her as the wind lapped at her ski jacket. Powdered snow inches thick blanketed the run, making it as smooth as water. Amber hit the moguls in no time and guided her skis through them with a series of quick flick-back turns.
“Beat ya,” Kelli yelled as they popped out the bottom of the moguls. Amber laughed with the crazy young woman as they flew toward the next turn.
Her clouded breaths shot in and out in rapid succession as her energy level hit maximum. She wished Oliver could see her now, tearing up the snow-burdened slope like an expert. He’d smile at her, with that look of pride that she’d come to love.
She was so lost in thought that when she reached the bottom of the black run she was surprised at how black and burdened the sky looked.
When she glanced at Kelli, who’d paused at a line of trees, her usual smiling face was gone and Amber thought she saw terror written on her features.
“What?” Amber scooted across the snow toward her.
“I think I heard the siren. That’s not good. We’ve gotta get off the mountain.”
“What siren?”
“Storm siren. We need to do this fast and hard. I know you can do it, Amber. Let’s go.” Kelli shot forward, heading toward a cloud that seemed to be sitting on the snow. It was the first time Kelli hadn’t let her lead the way, and that one simple action highlighted how serious this was.
Bolts of fear shot up Amber’s back, and her heart was in her throat as she drove her poles into the powder and chased after Kelli. She tucked her sticks under her elbows, hunched over, offering as little wind resistance as she could, and let gravity take over.
Out of Mind Page 12
