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  It was getting lighter now. Dappled sunlight peeked through the drapes, spraying across the carpet. I made a mental note to ask for a vacuum when I asked for a hair dryer.

  “Time to go into the snake pit,” I said slowly, and braced myself. I painted on my best smile before leaving the room to find Grandma.

  The staircase wound upward. I hurt my neck leaning my head all the way back to get a look at the top. Sunlight splattered down through the glass on the ceiling above, illuminating the old, wooden steps. When I’d come here as a child, it looked just as worn down. Dad had offered to help fix it up, but Grandma said no. She was stubborn as hell. She reminded me of Jackson in that way.

  I walked down the steps to the next floor. I found Grandma’s room and hesitantly held my hand up to the door before knocking three times.

  “Come in,” she croaked in her raspy voice. She sounded like she smoked a pack a day her whole life.

  I sucked in a deep breath, then steadied myself. I pressed my lips together as I pushed down the handle. I forced a big smile, although she couldn’t see me, it put me in a better mood.

  I opened the door. Grandma wasn’t in bed this time. She was sitting at her vanity. Her reflection stared back at her in the mirror with an unseeing gaze, an echo of her younger self showing through the wrinkles and gray hair.

  “It’s me, Pierce,” I said as lightly as I could manage. “I’m really sorry to bother you, Grandma.” I attempted to be as endearing as I could. “I’m wondering if you have a hair dryer anywhere.”

  She turned around. Her eyes were unfocused. “There is one in the closet.”

  I looked around for the closet and spotted a pair of cream doors. “Thank you.” I paused for a moment. “Thank you so much for letting us stay.”

  Her expression didn’t show a thing. “It’s just for now.”

  I attempted empathy. “I know it must be hard, us showing up after all these years with news that your only son has passed away.”

  The corner of her lips twitched. “It is what it is” was all she said. Ouch.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t come and see you before. I missed you. I remember when I was a little girl and you would braid my hair.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Still,” I replied too quickly. “I remember it.”

  “So do I.”

  I looked around. The room was a mess. Clothes spilled from the bed to the floor. Used cups littered the nightstands, and dust covered everything. “I’d be happy to help you clean if you like,” I said as delicately as I could. “I can imagine it’s hard to keep up with it all—”

  “Being blind and getting old,” she stated, interrupting me. A laugh tinkled out of her mouth. “It happens to us all, getting old.”

  “I know,” I said calmly. “If you do need help, since you’ve been generous enough to let us stay here, it would be my pleasure to do anything you need.”

  I could tell I was getting to her. Her expression softened, only ever so slightly. “I need my dry cleaning picked up from town.” She pointed at the nightstand. I don’t know why I was surprised that she knew where it was, but I remembered she had lived in the house before she had gone blind. I walked to the nightstand and picked up a receipt for a dry cleaner. It was in town.

  “I can go!” I said with a smile. Whatever I had to do so for her to let us stay, I would. “I’ll go now.”

  “Thanks, dear.”

  I let out a slow breath. At least she was being semi-nice now. I’d wear her down. Kill them with kindness, as the saying went. I stared at the receipt. She was going by her maiden name: Vera Mendoza, not Harrison.

  The town bustled with people. It was nothing like Manhattan, where I could go anywhere and not be noticed, where it was easy to sink into a crowd. No one cared about you there, especially if you went out in casual wear and tried to blend in. In Manhattan, I can be surrounded by people and still feel alone, but here in Ridgeview, everyone knew everyone. It was a small town, but it had everything you needed. I headed down the road. The clouds hid the sun, casting everything in a gray glow.

  A man sat playing a guitar on a parked bench. He tapped his foot against the concrete, and his head bobbed a little as he strummed the strings. His tousled hair moved in the breeze. Pinched wrinkles formed in the corner of his eyes. His gaze was far off and not focused. His lips were thin and stretched into a small smile, and short, dark facial hair sprayed across his prominent jawline. He seemed tall, from what I could tell from him sitting. Just over six feet if I had to take a guess. His skin wasn’t pale like everyone else we had seen from the airport to the house. It was a little darker, as if he had a suntan.

  He looked up and spotted me staring at him from behind a wall. Could the look he was giving me be any creepier? I ducked instinctively, then flushed red. I couldn’t have looked guiltier of spying if I had tried. I had just happened across him. It wasn’t like I was a stalker, although my hiding from him was hardly proof of that. Why hadn’t I just smiled and waved like a normal person?

  Slowly, I stood. He was still looking at me. His lips curved into a smile. It was contagious. I smiled back, feeling a little flustered, then continued to walk. I glanced his way a few times, and every time I did, he looked at me, catching me. We both smiled knowingly. I looked up at the sky with a grin on my face.

  I dismissed the handsome stranger from my mind as I walked to the dry cleaners. Keeping Grandma was my priority right now.

  Chapter Four

  Jackson

  The smell of bacon pulled me slowly out of the deepest sleep I’d gotten in the last forty-eight hours. My mouth was watering before my eyelids could flutter open. I inhaled and smiled. Bacon was my favorite way to start the day.

  I stretched and let my feet fall onto the shockingly cold hardwood floor. I gasped and pulled my feet back to the warmth and safety of my bed as my eyes flung open and searched for the plush zebra-print rug under my bed. Rather than my custom-designed-for-me bedroom I loved in Manhattan, the room I was currently in was dark with peeling wallpaper, and it smelled like moth balls.

  I wiped away the salty tears that had started rolling down my cheeks as I remembered our predicament. Mom and Dad were gone. It was just me and Pierce now… and Vera. Pierce remembered things about Vera from when we’d visited when we were younger, but I couldn’t remember anything. This house and our grandmother felt distant and unfamiliar to me.

  I shuddered, then took a deep breath. We’d get through this. We always did. Me and Pierce were unstoppable, and she always made sure I was okay. She was nearly a second mother to me even though we were less than two years apart.

  I braced myself before putting my feet back onto the cold floor. I tiptoed to my suitcase and rummaged for my fuzzy, tie-dye slippers. The soft material was comforting against my feet as I pulled them on and began searching for a hoodie. The fall weather was creeping into the drafty old house and chills ran up and down my arms.

  The house was incredibly colder than the weather outside had been the past few days. How was that possible?

  I yanked out the royal-blue, oversized hoodie I had stolen from Sean after the Homecoming dance less than a month ago. I missed my high school, my friends, and my cell phone almost as much as I missed Mom and Dad. Vera didn’t even have a computer as far as I could tell. I didn’t want to offend her by asking, since she was blind and all. I wondered if Sean thought about me or if he had moved on when he found out we weren’t coming back to school. We’d only gone to a dance together. I couldn’t expect us to stay in touch across the country, but I was glad I had grabbed the hoodie when we packed our suitcases.

  I pulled out my cell phone and checked for a Wi-Fi signal again. Our service had been turned off, but I hoped there might be a neighbor I could snag Internet from. No such luck. The nearest neighbor was at the bottom of the hill at the edge of the woods. No one else lived up here on the ridge except for Vera. I shoved my phone into the pocket of Sean’s hoodie and moved to the window a
t the far end of the room.

  The long velvet drapes were heavy and laden with dust that flew into my face when I shoved the God-awful things to the side hoping to let some light into the dingy room. I frowned at the blanket of fog that crept over the grounds and wove between the trees covering the hillside. The clouds overhead looked heavy with rain, and my frown turned into a smirk. Thunderstorms were my favorite. Maybe I could spend the day reading in bed instead of cleaning the manor like I was sure Pierce planned to do. She was a neat freak, and I knew there was no way she’d let this place go one more day without dusting it at least. I was going to miss our maid service in Manhattan.

  A knock at the door startled me.

  “Jackson, you coming down for breakfast?” Pierce asked before pushing open the large oak door.

  “Yikes.” I cringed at the dark circles and bags under her eyes. “Rough night?”

  She shrugged off my comment. “Yeah, but I’ll be okay. I grabbed some bacon and eggs from the store this morning while I was running errands. You want brunch?”

  “You’ve already been into town? What time is it?” I yawned.

  “Almost noon. Let’s go.”

  Pierce gently shoved me through the bedroom door and ushered me down the stairs and through the long corridor leading to the kitchen and dining room. I didn’t think I would ever be able to navigate the manor without a map, but Pierce seemed to know the place like the back of her hand already.

  “Good afternoon, girls,” Vera croaked when we entered the kitchen.

  “I put your dry cleaning in your closet when I got back. I couldn’t find you. I hope that’s all right,” Pierce mentioned as she loaded our plates with scrambled eggs, toast, and crispy bacon.

  Vera leaned against the kitchen island but waved her cane in the air as though to dismiss what Pierce had said. I guess she didn’t care.

  “Where were you this morning, Grandma?”

  Pierce grabbed the old woman’s elbow and tried to help her to the breakfast nook where there were benches to sit on around a corner table, but Vera yanked her arm away and scoffed at my sister.

  “Where do you get off questioning me about my whereabouts, hmm?” Vera snapped.

  Pierce quickly stepped back with her hands up as though Vera could see she meant no harm. “I’m just worried about you is all.”

  “You don’t need to be worrying about me! Neither of you!”

  Vera pointed her cane in my general direction. I rolled my eyes and shoved a big bite of scrambled eggs into my mouth. Pierce shoved me lightly and narrowed her eyes.

  What? I mouthed.

  Pierce rolled her eyes at me and sighed audibly.

  Pierce tried again to start a conversation with Vera. “I thought I might help the gardener today. He’s been here since the crack of dawn, and I’d really like to get some fresh cut flowers in here and brighten the place up. Do you mind, Grandma?”

  “There’s no gardener,” Vera stated.

  Pierce scoffed. “Well of course there is. I just saw him this morning. He’s worked here for decades he said.”

  “I haven’t had a gardener in over twenty years, young lady. If you saw a man on this property, you must have been dreaming. I think I’ll take my meal in bed.” The old woman huffed before shakily standing and leaning against her cane.

  “Let me help you,” Pierce offered.

  “That’s quite all right,” Vera snapped again before Pierce could reach her.

  My sister’s face fell. She looked dejected, and the hurt in her eyes was enough to offend me.

  “Look, Vera. We don’t want to be here as much as you don’t want us to be here. Our parents are dead, and you’re kinda all we have left. You could at least be appreciative that we’re trying to help out instead of being so damn grouchy,” I snapped.

  Pierce gasped as our grandmother stopped dead in her tracks.

  “You’re just like your mother,” she whispered before taking a deep breath and walking away from us.

  “What the hell, Jackson!” Pierce whisper-shouted as soon as the old woman was mostly out of sight.

  “I wasn’t going to let her keep treating you like that. I mean seriously, Pierce! You’re waiting on her hand and foot, doing her errands, and for what?”

  “For what?” she asked excitedly. “She is the only family we have left besides each other. She’s our grandmother.”

  “Yeah well, as far as I’m concerned, she’s just some crazy old lady who doesn’t want us here. I don’t remember her. I don’t remember this house, and I don’t want to be here. I want to go home to Manhattan and all our friends!”

  Tears of frustration were streaming down my face before I could stop them. Pierce rushed to my side and wrapped her arms around my shoulders as I sobbed into my arms with my head down on the island.

  “Oh, Jackie, I know it’s hard. I miss Mom and Dad too. I want to go home too, and we will go back home. We just have to get through this year.” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Mom and Dad’s lawyer will let us know when everything is done. It’s just going to take some time. There are legal battles too. We just have to stay strong until then. Okay?”

  Pierce was often more of a mother to me than our own mom had been. I could tell her anything, and I knew she’d understand me. Her ability to empathize was uncanny, and she always seemed to know exactly what I was going through. I looked up at her porcelain-toned face and long, red hair. My sister, the enigma. She was the only person in our immediate family who hadn’t inherited the Hispanic features from Dad’s side of the family. Even our mom had darker features, though she claimed to be a mix of northern European countries. We’d joked that Pierce was the milkman’s baby, but really, I had always been jealous how our mother’s Scottish roots had only been passed onto my sister and not to me. All the boys at our prep school in Manhattan had a thing for Pierce. Sean was the first guy I’d met who didn’t use me to get her attention.

  I dried my eyes on the hoodie and leaned into my sister. She kissed the top of my head, then pulled away.

  “I’m going to take Grandma’s plate to her room. When I get back, we gotta talk about school,” Pierce warned.

  My head fell right back into my arms as I groaned dramatically. I had already missed a week of my senior year, and I had planned on talking to the principal about doing the rest of the coursework from home—or rather, from Vera’s home. I hoped Vera and Pierce were on board because I had no intention of enrolling in a public high school here in middle-of-nowhere Ridgeview. Pierce wasn’t going to start college again—at least, I figured as much—so why did I have to finish high school? Once my dad was found innocent, we would have more than enough money to start our own businesses or even live comfortably without ever working.

  I stood from the stool hoping to make it upstairs and to my room before Pierce was finished with Vera, but as I reached the top of the grand staircase, Pierce and I nearly collided when she came barreling out of Vera’s room and slammed the door shut behind her.

  “What the hell!” I asked her.

  “She’s completely impossible! One minute she’s being kind to me, and the next she’s biting my head off!”

  Pierce, who was rare to show much emotion, paced back and forth across the hallway, her face red and angry tears brimming her eyes.

  I stepped into my sister’s path to get her to stop and talk to me. “What did she say to you?”

  “All that matters is it was hateful and completely uncalled for! I’ve bent over backward for that woman today, and she just insults me so carelessly. She doesn’t even know us, Jackie!”

  Pierce closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. I wasn’t sure what to say. Pierce was much better at comforting someone than I was, and since my sister was rarely upset, I had no idea how to make her feel better.

  I stepped into her and threw my arms around her chest and squeezed her tight. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to stay here. We can just go back home to Manhattan and start over.” I stepped back
and looked at her. For a split second, I thought Pierce’s eyes had flashed redder than her hair. She blinked and the color was gone, but her anger was not. She soon snapped out of it, but this wasn’t like her. Pierce never got angry.

  She shook her head and regained her composure.

  “Don’t worry though,” she assured me. “You’re starting school on Monday too. I’m making sure of it, so at least you can get out of this house.”

  I slumped my shoulders. “I don’t want to—”

  “It’s not a discussion.”

  Great, I thought. Just what I wanted to do—complete my senior year at a public school as a broke orphan.

  “Fine,” I said, relenting. “Whatever.”

  Pierce rolled her eyes, then walked off, leaving me alone by Grandma’s door. Curiously, I creaked it open, wondering if she’d heard everything Pierce had shouted. Surely, she must have.

  Vera looked in my general direction upon hearing the creak of the door. “Sorry,” I said quietly. “We’re going to our rooms now.”

  “Wait. Jackson.” Vera threw something at me. On the ground by my feet was a little blue bag. I bent over and picked it up.

  “Is this for me?” I asked, surprised at the sudden gift-giving, considering us being here had been nothing but a nuisance to her.

  “Yes.”

  I pulled the drawstrings and opened the bag. Inside was a silver bracelet with a small green charm on it. “Wear it. Always. It’s a family heirloom,” she said, then lay back against her headboard.

  I furrowed my brows. I shoved it back into the bag and closed the door. Why would she give me a family heirloom? Pierce was the oldest. Without thinking too much into it, I shoved the bracelet pouch into my pocket.

  “Crazy lady,” I muttered as I headed to my room.

  Chapter Five

  Pierce

  I had always been slow to anger, like my mother. The rage burning through my veins was unfamiliar and made me nervous. Our grandmother wanted our inheritance and wanted us gone. There could be no other meaning behind what she had told me; and she wasn’t even apologetic about her greed. The warm grandmother I remembered braiding my hair thirteen years ago was not the same person who was trying to get us out of her home as fast as possible. Jackson’s idea to head back to Manhattan sounded heavenly, but we had no way of getting there and nothing to go back to. Although, I was sure if I could get ahold of Sabrina or Quinn, my two besties, we could stay with one of their families. I just didn’t want to deal with the backlash from Dad’s pyramid schemes. Everyone would surely still hate us just for bearing his last name.