My Sister Is the Warlord Queen novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Cedar Box

Every head in the ballroom turned to the front table.

Marguerite stood up slowly.

She smoothed her skirt.

"My son is upset," she said to the room, in a calm, carrying voice. "He's had a terrible night. Please excuse him."

"Mom!" Thayer twisted around on his knees. "Tell them! Tell them it was you!"

"Thayer. Get up off the floor."

She picked up her little beaded bag and walked out.

She didn't hurry.

She went down the side aisle, past my people, past the insurers, and out the doors, and she never once looked back at her son.

Thayer stayed on his knees until the hotel security came and helped him up.

The same guard from the loading dock.

He was very gentle about it.

Cal drove us back to Charlestown at midnight.

Roisin fell asleep in the back seat before we crossed the bridge, still in her green dress, her shoes in her lap.

I sat in front with the wine drying stiff in my hair.

"Say it," I said.

"Say what?"

"Whatever you've been chewing on since he grabbed my skirt."

Cal kept his eyes on the road.

"The night Thayer first brought Roisin to dinner," he said. "Last winter. I was there."

"And?"

"Roisin talked about the bakery. About growing up on Dot Ave. About you." He frowned at the windshield. "Marguerite didn't say ten words all night. She went upstairs before dessert. Said she had a migraine."

"People get migraines."

"I walked out to my truck at eleven. Her car was in the drive with the engine running." He paused. "She was sitting in it alone. Crying. Hard. I've never seen her cry. Not at my father's funeral."

I watched the bridge lights go by.

"There's a box," he said. "Cedar, about this big. She's kept it in her dressing room as long as I've known her. Locked. Thayer opened it once when he was ten and she didn't speak to him for a week. Thayer. Her favorite."

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