Graveminder

sense when she wasn’t so hungry. “I don’t think I want the help you have.”

He cradled his bloody arm and tried to stand. “This isn’t right. You aren’t right. You aren’t supposed to be here.”

“But I am .” Daisha shoved him down. She was still hungry, but she was more afraid of him than she was hungry. He doesn’t understand. Afraid meant falling apart. She didn’t like that. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Daisha might not have chosen to be dead—or to be awake after dying—but she could make a few choices now.

Quietly Daisha left the room and closed the door behind her.

William didn’t follow.

She thought about visiting the woman who was humming in her office, but staying here seemed unwise. William might not be strong enough to stop her, but he knew things and people who might be able to hurt her.

Daisha slipped out the door.

Someone else would feed her, someone who didn’t make her afraid. She’d find them, and then she’d decide what to do next.

Chapter 17

REBEKKAH WAS GRATEFUL FOR BYRON’S SILENCE AS THEY RODE THE short distance to Maylene’s house. Some part of her rebelled at how easy it always was to pick up where they’d left off. At the beginning, Byron had been her guilty secret. And Ella knew. Rebekkah didn’t mean for anything to happen; she’d loved her stepsister. One night. One kiss. That was it. She shouldn’t have, and she knew it then, but it was only once. It wouldn’t have happened again. We wouldn’t have ... It took years before she could even talk to Byron without feeling guilty. Then one night, too many drinks and years of wanting edged her across the line she swore she wouldn’t cross. Afterward, he’d become the one addiction she couldn’t shake, but every time she let him in she thought about her sister. Ella knew how I felt, how he felt, and she died knowing it.

The car stopped. Byron opened the door and got out.

“You ready for this?” he asked.

“No, not really.” Rebekkah took a deep breath and followed him to the front porch and into her grandmother’s home. My home. She didn’t want to know where in the house Maylene had died, but knowing that she had died there made it hard not to wonder. Later. She would ask questions later—of Byron, of Sheriff McInney, of William.

Cissy sat in Maylene’s chair, and by the look on her face, she wasn’t feeling the least bit friendly. She glared fixedly at Rebekkah and Byron as they entered the room.

“Aunt Cissy,” Rebekkah murmured.

“Becky.” Cisssy held a cup of tea in one hand and a saucer in the other. Her tone was scathing as she said, “I assume he told you.”

Rebekkah paused. This wasn’t the time or place. “Please don’t.”

“My mother was killed here in her home. My home ... Right there.” Cissy closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them to glare at Rebekkah. “They found her out there in the kitchen. Did he tell you that part?”

“Cecilia! Please, not now.” Daniel Greeley, one of the councilmen, had walked into the room. Rebekkah had met him a few times during her visits to Maylene, and she was grateful to see him today. He stood like a sentinel in front of Cissy.

“Oh, it’s fine for me to know? It’s okay for my daughters to know? But we have to protect her ?” Cissy stood up so abruptly that the rocker clattered into the wall. She glared at Rebekkah. “You aren’t even family . You don’t need to be here. Just say you don’t want it, Rebekkah. That’s all you have to do.”

Everyone stopped talking. People were politely leaving the room or turning their backs as if they couldn’t hear the conversation. However, Cissy was loud enough that there was no way not to hear her.

“Mother.” Liz stepped up beside Cissy. “You’re upset, and—”

“If she had any morals, she’d leave.” Cissy glared at Rebekkah. “She’d let Maylene’s real family have what’s rightly theirs.”

For a moment, Rebekkah was too stunned to react. She was sickened by the idea that Cissy’s hostility was over something as petty as money and things. Had the years of anger toward Rebekkah and her mother been because of Cissy’s greed?

“Get out,” Rebekkah said softly. “Now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Get out.” Rebekkah stepped away from Byron, putting herself closer to Cissy, but not too close; she kept her arms at her sides to stop herself from grabbing hold of the woman and tossing her out. “I am not going to stand in Maylene’s home and have you do this. I get that you’re angry about the funeral, but you know what? I’ve watched Maylene do the exact same thing when you started caterwauling, but she’s not here now to tell you to stop making a spectacle of yourself.”

Both twins were now standing beside their mother. Teresa had taken Cissy’s arm in her hand in a gesture that could be either supportive or restrictive. Liz stood with her arms folded over her chest. The twins, like everyone else in the room, were silent.

Rebekkah didn’t move. “I never wanted you to hate me, and God knows I’ve tried to make nice with you, but right now, I don’t care. What I care about is that you are disrespecting Maylene in her own home. You have two choices: you can act civil, or you can get out.”

Cissy shook off Liz’s hold and stepped forward. Her voice was lower now as she said, “I’ll never bother you again if you release your claim on my mother’s bequests. Just walk away from here, Rebekkah.”

Rebekkah frowned. Release the claim on her bequests?

“Cissy?” The sheriff walked up beside them. “How about we get a little air?”

Rebekkah didn’t stay to find out if Cissy went with him. She turned and walked into her grandmother’s kitchen. It was full of people, some familiar and some not. Her visits home weren’t that frequent, and it had been years since she lived there, but every time she came home, Maylene seemed to want her to accompany her everywhere. The result was that she knew a fair number of the Claysville residents even though she had only truly lived there a few years.

“Ladies.” Byron had followed her into the kitchen. “Would you give us a minute?”

“So, I thought that went fairly well.” Rebekkah forced an I’m-not-falling-apart expression to her face before she turned to look at him. She knew he’d see through it, but she wanted the illusion that she hadn’t already slipped into the habit of letting down her guard around him.

He snorted. “She was waiting for that.”

“I’d ask why, but I don’t think you know any better than I do.” Rebekkah looked at the kitchen floor. “The rug’s gone. My grandmother died right here, and they had to get rid of the rug because of it, didn’t they?”

“Don’t do this to yourself, not right now. ” Byron wrapped his arms around her.

“That was a yes.” Rebekkah leaned into his embrace. “I don’t understand why Cissy wants to hurt me. I don’t want to know that Maylene ...” She closed her eyes for a moment. “I don’t want her to be dead.”

“I can’t change that.” He held her for a few moments, and when she relaxed a little, he asked, “Want me to kick Cissy’s ass?”

Rebekkah laughed a little, but the laugh didn’t completely hide the sob.

They were still standing like that when Evelyn came in a few minutes later. She was only a few years older than they were, but she’d always had a maternal streak to her. When Byron had spilled his first bike during a race out at the reservoir, it was Evelyn who hovered over him until Chris got him to promise he’d go to the doctor and got Ella and Rebekkah to promise to call him to wake him every forty-five minutes to make sure he wasn’t concussed. Being the sheriff’s wife and mother of four kids had made her even more of a nurturer.