She shook her head and yawned. “You ready to eat?”
I gestured to the noodles. “I’ll get those. You get the butter.”
Together we finished off the macaroni and cheese, then I went to shredding the chicken.
“Light meat or dark meat?” I asked as I held out the two paper plates full of both.
“I like light,” she admitted. “I think the dark is a little too fatty for me.”
I grinned. “We’re already making a great pair. Between the two of us, we’re going to eat a whole goddamn chicken.”
She snickered. “Unless you’re going to help me with some of this? I doubt it.”
What she didn’t eat, I did.
And when we were done, we cleaned up the kitchen as if we’d done it a hundred times, and not just for the first time.
Half an hour later, as I all but fell into the couch beside Fran, who was going over a large stack of papers, a sense of wrongness started to hit me.
I wasn’t sure why, though. It felt like forgetting to do something that was really important, yet I couldn’t figure it out.
“What are you reading?” I asked curiously, rubbing the center of my chest as if that would fix the raw ache that resided there.
“A list of errands that I need to do,” she said. “I have a full day tomorrow, and the next day. Half a day the following day. And then I’m free for two whole days.” She paused. “I was thinking we could take your grandmother to Vegas.”
My brows rose.
Her cheeks heated at that. “Not to get married. Just to Vegas. She seemed very receptive to the idea of going and playing slots.”
I grinned at her words.
That grin fell off my face as if it’d never been when I realized what, exactly, I’d forgotten.
“Have you heard from her today?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter in my seat.
Fran blinked. “No, was I supposed to?”
I nodded my head. “Actually, yeah. I thought you’d tell me what she wanted when I got home. She called about an hour before I left the station and wanted to know something. I told her I was in the middle of a big break in the case and asked her to call you.”
“She didn’t call.” Fran sounded worried now, too. “Should I call her?”
Instead of answering, I called her back. “I’ll call. See what she wanted.”
Except, when I called back, she never answered.
“It’s late,” Fran suggested. “After ten. She has to be asleep.”
I told myself that was it. But after at least an hour of sitting there worrying about it, I decided to just go check on her.
“I need to go check on my Grans.” I stood up from my seat on the couch.
Fran, who’d been partially leaning on me, stood up, too, heading to her room in the next second. “Let’s go.”
I knew the moment we entered my Gran’s house that something was wrong.
That something was different this time.
That presence—the one that was always there when I needed it most—was gone.
I found her in her bed. Sleeping peacefully. The large stuffed animal that Fran and I had spent over twenty minutes trying to win her by her side, tucked against her chest, and she was smiling. Even in death.
“No,” I croaked.
Fran walked over to the bed and put a knee in it, her shaking hand reaching for the woman that meant the world to me.
“She’s gone,” Fran whispered shakily.
I fell to my knees beside the bed, the last person that was my family leaving me all alone in such a cruel, mistreated world.
“I need a minute,” I croaked. “Actually, I need about an hour. Can you… can you leave me with her? Can you go back to my place? I’ll call when…”
I’ll call when I can talk to you and not cry my goddamn eyes out.
“Yeah,” she whispered, crawling off of the bed. “I can.”
But before she left, she made sure to kiss my cheek. “Love you, Taos. You’re not alone anymore. Remember that.”
I turned back to the bed after she left and looked at my grandmother’s blue lips. “I should’ve listened to you and spent more time with you. You knew, and I refused to accept it.”
I couldn’t tell you how fucking hard it was to not hear her immediately respond with her sarcastic, grandmotherly voice.
But if the ache in my chest was any indication, I didn’t think that the feeling would be going away anytime soon. If ever.
CHAPTER 24
Brains are awesome. I wish everyone had one.
-Text from Mavis to Fran
FRAN
Leaving him with his dead grandmother felt like taking a knife straight to the heart.
But he’d asked for the time alone with her, and I wasn’t about to argue with him.
Plus, I felt like I was intruding.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know Madden’s number to call him and tell him. Hell, I didn’t even know who to call in the case of a death. The police? The justice of the peace? Paramedics?
Shit.
Thinking that I’d take that time he asked for to research what to do in the event of a natural death, I drove back to Taos’ place, my head in a fog.
Though I’d only spent one day with the woman, I knew that I would grieve harder for her than I would for my own grandmother that I’d known for my entire life.
My head was so focused on how bad my heart hurt, that I didn’t notice the signs.
I walked into the house, not thinking about serial killers and my name being out there, but about how sad Taos had looked when he’d walked through that door. The same door that, only hours ago, he’d walked out of with a huge smile on his face.
The first thing I noticed when I got into the living room was the entry table being a couple of inches away from the wall where it usually sat.
I frowned hard at it, dropped my keys onto the table, and then looked at the window where it’d been in front of.
I had just swung the door closed, reached for the lights, and then felt something wrap around my neck.
My automatic response was to struggle, and struggle I did.
I fought, kicked, screamed, and bit as I tried in vain to get away.
The man that had a hold of me, that had something wrapped around my neck, was so strong that I had no hope in getting him to let me go based on my strength alone.
By the time that he had me subdued, his big body lying on top of mine, pinning me to the ground, I had nothing left.
He was too big. Too strong. Too determined.
And my puny strength put against his was laughable.
“All done?” He laughed in my ear.
I closed my eyes as silent tears started to track down my cheeks.
“I don’t like it when they cry. I like it when they scream, punch and hit. It…” He dug his erection into my back, and my mind just… blanked.
I went to a place that was light. That there was no scary man holding me down, in the dark, and pressing things against me that no woman would ever want pressed against her.
Fight, girl.
Fight.
I heard the voice in my ear and knew without a shadow of a doubt that it hadn’t come from the man that it sounded like. It was part of my dissociative event. Something my therapist said that I did when I was coping in unhealthy ways.