Chapter 6: Her Mother's Necklace

The house I grew up in is a yellow two-story on Maple Court with a porch swing my mother painted.

I had not been gone a full day, and it already looked like somebody else's.

Roan parked his black truck across the end of the driveway.

Nash climbed out of the back seat with a pastry still in his hand and gave the house a long, thoughtful look.

"Cute," he said. "Where do we hide the body?"

"Nobody's hiding anybody," Roan said.

"I'm just saying, if."

The front door opened before I got to the steps.

My stepmother stood in it with her arms folded and a smile on her face.

"Sutton. We weren't expecting you home so soon."

"I'm not home," I said. "I'm here for my things."

"You'll have to be a little more specific."

Behind her, on the stairs, Camryn came down slowly with one hand on the banister.

She had something at her throat.

It was a thin gold chain with a small gold hummingbird, and it caught the light from the hall window.

I stopped on the porch.

"That's my mother's," I said.

"Oh!" Camryn put her fingers over it. "Mom said it was all right. She said you wouldn't want it now that you're, you know, settled."

"Take it off."

"Sutton, it's just a necklace."

"My mother wore it in the hospital. She put it in my hand the night before she died." I held my own hand out, palm up. "Take it off, Camryn."

She looked at her mother.

My stepmother lifted one shoulder, and Camryn undid the clasp slowly, with her eyes on my face.

She dropped it in my palm.

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