***
The woman in the bed wasn’t yet seventy, but she looked ancient. Her skin hung in thin folds and wrinkles, and most of her hair had fallen out. She was skeletal, the white blankets resting loosely over her form, exaggerating the lack of flesh.
Mattie knocked softly on the doorframe. “Hello?”
The emaciated woman on the bed opened her glazed eyes and managed a weak smile. “Evelyn?” Her voice was nothing more than a rough whisper.
“No, I’m Mattie,” Mattie answered, edging into the room. Ruth Ellen Carruther’s bed was raised high, mostly for ease of care by her nurses in the facility. Mattie set the vase of colorful daises on the nightstand near a spray of withering roses. She glimpsed the card stuck in the dying flowers. West’s name was scribbled near the bottom.
What a sweet guy. She suppressed a smile and turned her attention to Ruth Ellen.
Ruth Ellen’s eyes bore into hers and swept every inch of her face and form. She sighed after a long moment. “Karen named you Evelyn.”
“I—” Dear Lord, not another name!
“I told Carmen not to change your name. What was she thinking, calling you ‘Mattie’?”
“It’s actually Matilyn.”
“I know what your name is. Evelyn Claire Carruther. I wasn’t even sure who your father was. Karen named you Evelyn after her grandmother, but she vowed you’d never be called by it.” Ruth Ellen Carruther sighed and shifted her shoulders against the pillows. “It doesn’t matter. All that matters is you’re going to be Elaine for me.” The woman looked stronger suddenly. Her eyes lost the vacant glazed look. “My Elaine is dead. I know it in my heart. He killed her.”
“Who?”
“My son-in-law.”
Shocked, Mattie reeled back half a step. “Why? When?”
“Money. Jealousy. Anger. Hatred. You see, like you, she wasn’t his child. She was the product of an indiscretion of Karen’s.”
Ruth Ellen’s color improved, her sunken cheeks pinking. Her voice grew more confident. “I know who you are, Matilyn Delacourt. I know your history. I know about the man you conned in Reno. I know about the year you spent in jail, and the technicality you got off on for the other incident.”
At the mention of her past, Mattie choked on her own saliva. “Kirkland made me do all that. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I have never wanted to hurt anybody.”
“I don’t care about that. My life is just about over, but I refuse to die and let the bastard my daughter married get away with taking the only thing I ever loved away from me. Losing Elaine nearly killed me.”
“What do you want me to do?” Nearly breathless, Mattie sank into the bedside chair.
“Find Elaine. She’s somewhere on Brant’s property. I’m the only one that believed the poor boy when he said he’d seen someone outside his window.” Ruth Ellen slumped against her pillows, paling considerably. “You aren’t McKendrick’s child, so you won’t inherit his money. You will, however, inherit a substantial portion of your mother’s estate, as well as mine. When you find Elaine’s body, I will make sure you are rewarded.”
More money than K even thought I’d get. He’d estimated a low six-figure amount. Relief beat hard in Mattie’s heart. “I don’t want anyone other than lawyers and us to know the exact amount.” Mattie licked her dry lips. “How will I find Elaine?”
“Ask Brant. Talk to Brant.” She opened her eyes once more. “You’re so much better for him than that Emeline. My own granddaughter, and I can’t stand her. Go on now. If you don’t find her before I die, I won’t finalize the changes to my will or release the letter that absolves you from any sort of fraud. We need to meet again next week. My lawyer will join us, and we’ll finalize the details.”
Her eyes closed tight again, and even when Mattie whispered her name, Ruth Ellen didn’t respond.
Slowly, disappointed, Mattie left the room. She had so many questions, so many things she needed to know.
If she and Elaine were both illegitimate, why had she been abandoned? Why had Elaine been allowed to stay?
Had Karen ever wondered about her? Wanted her back?
Had she ever cared at all?
Mattie sat down on a sun-warmed bench outside the front doors and waited for West to return to pick her up. Moments after she sat down, her cell phone rang. “Hello?”
“How’s the reunion, hot stuff?”
“Shut up, K. And it’s going. That’s all I can say. Nothing’s happening.”
“Got the money yet?”
“K, I’ve been here all of a day! McKendrick is talking blood tests and all sorts of things. Did you think they would just let me walk in, write me a check, and let me walk back out? People have tried to scam them before. They aren’t easy marks.”
When K spoke, his voice was bitter, angry. Mattie felt a tingle of fear in her belly. If K had been physically close to her, she’d never speak like that to him. Her hands shook just thinking about what he would do to her.
Only when she was far away from K did she lose the mindless dependence and numbing fear. For a while, she could be herself, try to find the bits of herself that had been lost over the years.
After she argued with K for a little longer and listened to his veiled threats without a single flutter of fear, she promised him results in a week and hung up.
A woman with long white-blonde hair walked by. Her hair gleamed silver-white in the sunlight, reminding Mattie of Emeline’s hair. My sister.
All her life she’d known about Emeline. Emeline was the pretty one. The one everybody loved and fawned over. Emeline the model, the actress. The socialite. She hung out with young Hollywood starlets and rubbed shoulders with seasoned celebrities. Carmen made sure she knew where she came from, and why she wasn’t there anymore. Money was Carmen’s driving force in life.
K rubbed it in that Emeline had grown up in the fancy house with everything money could buy. He saved clippings from magazines and society pages about her little sister.
Mattie only wanted to know where she came from. The money only mattered because it was a way to get away from K.
She just wanted the family. The mother. The father. The sister. People who loved her.
West’s beat-up old truck pulled into the circular drive. Mattie stood up and waited by the curb, still half-lost in her thoughts.
She pried at the door but couldn’t get it open. West kicked it open and waited for her to climb in. “How’d it go?” he asked.
Mattie shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. She wants to see me again next week, with her lawyer.” She sighed and rested her head against the window.
“It’s a little overwhelming.”
“I bet. It’s been a hell of a day so far. Want to get something to eat?”
Mattie nodded, her eyes closed.
This wasn’t the usual con, and it was more than she could integrate at the moment. She needed a little while, a little separation from everything.
“Thanks for driving me out here.”
“No big deal. “
She fought the big lump in her throat and the tears building up behind her eyes. Go away, just go away, she pleaded silently with her damn gooey emotions.
The blasted sob worked its way out of her throat, as strangled as it was.
Embarrassed, she buried her face in her hands.
“You okay?” West asked.
Mattie nodded and stared out the window, not seeing a thing.
Tears ran down her cheeks anyway. Turning her back to West, she rested her arms on the door and buried her face within. The truck chugged to a stop. He shut off the engine.
A warm hand touched her back and patted gently.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said. Mattie turned around and gazed at him startled by his concern. For the last few hours, he’d been her constant shadow, but he’d been silent and distant, completely distrusting.
“Why do you care?” Mattie asked. Was his compassion a trick?
“I’m not a total asshole.”
Mattie shook her head, swiping at her tears with the heels of her hands and hoping her mascara wasn’t running too bad. “I’m fine. It’s just a lot to tak
e in. That’s my grandmother. And I met my sister and…I don’t know how to handle this stuff.”
West chewed on his bottom lip, eyeing her. “You’re so sure they’re yours.” He plucked a tissue out of a squashed box crammed between the back of the seat and the flat back window and handed it to her. Mattie swabbed her face and blew her nose.
“I’ve always known who they are,” she said. “This really is just a lot. I’ve always known about Karen and Ruth Ellen and Emeline, and now that I’m here it’s just...overwhelming.”
She hated the way his stunning eyes never lost their suspicious gaze when he was around her.
“I bet. You knew about them? You told me on the plane you had only recently found out.”
Mattie felt a flutter of nervousness in her belly. Anxiety wrapped around her chest, squeezing tight. She shrugged. “I didn’t know you. I still don’t, really. I’m not going to blurt out my hellacious childhood to a stranger.”
West cocked himself sideways in the driver’s seat and eyed her again. “Well, we’re not strangers now. Why don’t you go ahead and get it all off your chest?”
“No. It’s none of your business. The people who need to know my past already know it.” Mattie crossed her arms over her chest and stared straight ahead. He had parked them in the parking lot of a shopping center. People swarmed out of a Beall’s Outlet that was going out of business, laden down with bags of discount junk.
“I’m a lot more important than you think, Matilyn,” West said firmly.
“Don’t call me Matilyn. I’m Mattie.”
“Does it matter, Matilyn?”
She heard K’s hateful tones in West’s voice every time he said her full name. It brought up tears again. “Stop it!”
“Matilyn.”
“You are being really immature! I hate that name.”
“I’m sure the hell not calling you Elaine.”
“I didn’t ask you to. Just stop calling me Matilyn. You’re being such a bastard.”
West started the truck and wheeled out of the parking lot at high speed. Mattie gasped and clung to the dash to keep from sliding across the slick vinyl seat. “Never said I was a nice guy.”
“You could pretend to be.”
“What, like you’re pretending to be Karen’s kid?”
“Karen was my mother, West.”
“Uh huh. I bet. Don’t you feel even the remotest sense of guilt for trying to screw that sick, dying woman out of her money?” He glared at her as he drove, only breaking the biting stare to glance at the road once in a while.
“Ruth Ellen is my grandmother! You’ll see, you arrogant prick, when they do the DNA tests. Then you can just sit and spin.”
West rolled his eyes. “Where do you want to eat?”
“Eat? Fuck you, dude. Take me back to McKendrick’s house.”
“Nope. I have to stop by my place first and take care of some business. I told you this morning, I had things to do and you could tag along.”
“They live like five miles that way.” She pointed out the window. “You said you live like twenty miles in the other direction. Wouldn’t it be easier to just take me back?”
“Yeah. Thing is, I’m sort of the gatekeeper for the family. I don’t know you and I don’t trust you. If you want to get to them, you have to get through me.”
You are such an asshole.”
“Yep. It’s my middle name. Brant A. West.” He radiated a complicated sense of anger and hurt. Mattie held on tight as he zipped into a Burger King drive-through and ordered three Whoppers, fries, and two drinks. After he paid the cashier and she handed him the food, he tossed the bags into Mattie’s lap so he could dig a plastic cupholder out from behind the seat. He got it situated on the console hump between the seats, then grabbed one of the bags from Mattie.
Mattie almost laughed at him trying to drive and eat the loaded Whopper. Lettuce, tomato, and globs of mayonnaise and ketchup dripped out every time he tried to raise the thing to his lips.
After the third near-miss with oncoming traffic, he grunted a few disgusted curses.
“Let me help you,” Mattie said, taking the gooey hamburger and the wrapper from him. Their hands touched, and Mattie forced away the little electric thrill that raced through her.
I can’t deny he’s a good-looking guy. When he’s mad, he’s even hotter. To make things even worse, the hotter he got, the hotter she got. It had been years since a man even tweaked her interest.
She pulled all the hanging bits of lettuce away from the bun and wrapped the wrapper around the bottom half of the burger. Handing it back to him, she was surprised when he grunted, “Thanks.”
“No problem. Can I have one of these?” She gestured to the bag.
“Whatever.”
Assuming he meant it was okay and mentally telling him to go screw himself if it wasn’t, Mattie ate half of one of the Whoppers.
When she wrapped the rest of it back up, West commented, “You’re a cheap date.”
“A real treasure.”