Yeah.
Her father had walked out years ago, her mother was an alcoholic who was currently in the hospital after suffering a stroke, and her brother was a damn criminal.
And prime suspect in this burglary.
She knew what he was looking for, but she was smart enough not to keep anything of real value here at the house. Besides that, there was never any cash around and all the important documents on insurance policies were kept at her office—along with her laptop, tablet, and anything else with personal information on it. No one knew she kept it there—not even her boss. Although Patrick Donovan didn’t care about anything but buying, selling, and managing real estate. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she could bring in a six-foot tall file cabinet and tell him it was her own personal thing and he’d simply shrug and go back to scrolling through local property listings.
She wished she could simply shrug and ignore what was going on in front of her right now.
The urge to take the day off to handle the mess was strong, but the right thing to do was to go and try to put in at least a couple of hours, call Patrick and let him know she had some personal business to attend to, and then find someone to come back here with her to clean up. Besides needing the help, she didn’t want to take a chance on her brother showing up and finding her here alone.
And man did it suck that she had to think like that.
What she wanted to do was simply pack her things and leave and say the hell with the house and this entire situation. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Three months ago–during one of her mother’s more lucid moments—she had signed the house over to Marissa along with making her the sole beneficiary on her life insurance. They both knew her brother was growing more and more out of control and he wasn’t even being coy about how he deserved to have control over all their mother’s things.
And if she had to take a guess as to why everything in the house was literally upside down, she’d have to say that Daren was searching for not only money or anything he could sell but also any paperwork he could take and manipulate to try to get the control he was being denied.
“Oh, Mama…why didn’t you set him straight years ago?” she whispered. “Why do I need to keep cleaning up his mess?”
Again, all she wanted was to grab her things and go, but…while her mother might not have been the greatest mom in the world, she was battling an addiction and recovering from a stroke. Did she really want to heap more stress on her by leaving her to clean up this ransacked house when she got out of rehab?
If she got out of rehab…
Rubbing her temple, Marissa sighed loudly and knew she was only going to make herself crazy if she continued to stand here and obsess about all the ways her life was out of control. Walking around, she picked up the overturned kitchen chairs and then fixed the sofa cushions in the living room. Next, she straightened the blinds. Turning around, she faced the space again and shook her head.
“Baby steps,” she said wearily. As much as she wanted to dive in and start cleaning everything up, it was probably best for her to wait until the police officers were done looking around and making their report.
Sighing because she hated standing around feeling useless, she contemplated calling Patrick. In the last few months their relationship had gone from strictly business to a little more personal. He’d become a friend when she needed on the most. Marissa hated showing any kind of weakness, but when Patrick had found her crying one night at the office—and she was definitely there hiding out from her brother—he had been her refuge. He’d sat and listened to her and then took her home, fed her dinner, and let her crash in his guest room. And it had been exactly what she needed.
It still boggled her mind that her serious and broody and sometimes a total pain in the ass boss was the one who essentially pulled her out of a really dark situation. Although, she really shouldn’t be surprised. They worked well together and essentially Patrick was a problem solver. So naturally he took one look at her that fateful night and figured out how to help her.
Which was to get her to stop crying under her desk and get her someplace where she was safe and could relax.
For that one act alone, she’d be forever grateful.
Maybe I should call him…
No. It was far too chaotic in her house right now and as much as she would love a little reassurance that everything would be okay, he was undoubtedly busy and had more important things to do. He was a master at real estate negotiations and was on a mission to totally revamp the little town of Laurel Bay. She loved watching him work and had learned so much from him and her job had basically become a haven for her. They argued, they yelled at one another, and she knew there were times when she challenged his decisions when she shouldn’t, but for those glorious eight to ten hours a day, she was a different person.
A happy person.
An intelligent person.
A successful person.
But more than anything, an appreciated person.
Yeah, the hours she spent at work took her away from living with two addicts who only cared about the money she brought home.
And she learned early on to only bring home a fraction of it.
She’d been saving and saving and saving hoping to move out and having a life of her own. But that dream kept moving further and further out of her grasp.
But that didn’t stop her from dreaming.
The sound of her phone ringing had her heart jumping into her throat as she instantly panicked that it was her brother calling her. But when she glanced down and saw Patrick’s name, she forced herself to relax.
“Hey,” she said, making sure her voice was steady and confident. “How are things going up in Richmond?”
“Boring as hell,” he replied. “This conference is about as exciting as watching paint dry.”
“Then why are you still there?”
“Because I paid for it and I know if I leave, those last workshops will have information that I need.”
“Ah. FOMO.”
“Um…what?”
“FOMO—fear of missing out. I get it.”
“It’s not a fear…”
“Oh, please. It’s totally a fear,” she countered. “You’ve been at this conference for four days already. I’m pretty sure you could gage what the rest of the workshops are going to be like.”
“Well, I can’t,” he admitted grumpily. “And besides, I’ve got several meetings set up for tonight and tomorrow so even if I wanted to leave, I couldn’t.”
“You could always move those meetings to Zoom calls,” she suggested as she logged into her computer. “I’m sure we could get them all scheduled in no time.”
Silence.
This was the game they played—he complained, she offered a solution, he goes quiet as he thinks about it, and then he would tell her she was right and to set everything up.
“Maybe. I don’t know,” he said, but didn’t sound happy about it.
Normally he was the most decisive person she knew, so this was completely out of character for him.
“To be honest, I need this time away.”
And that was even more surprising.
“How come?”
“It’s nothing.”
With a quiet chuckle, Marissa fixed the sofa cushion and sat down. Patrick might say that it was nothing, but she knew him well enough to know it was definitely something.