The Unsent Appeal novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Landing

Briana came to my door at nine on Sunday morning with a duffel bag and her ring in a tissue.

She had not slept. Her hair was tied back with a hair elastic, and last night's mascara had dried in gray lines under her eyes.

"I left Mom's," she said. "I can't be in that house. Can I stay on your couch?"

I stepped aside.

"For as long as you want."

She came in and stood in the middle of my living room.

"I should have said it eight years ago," she said. "I was in my pajamas on the stairs, and Mom looked up at me, and I went back to bed."

"You were seventeen."

"That's no excuse. I'm done with the version where I slept through it."

"Briana."

"Let me say it." Her voice shook. "You were in a courtroom in a borrowed suit, and I was at school telling my friends my sister was a drunk driver. I let them think it. I liked having a story where I was the good one."

I sat down on the arm of the couch.

"Finley called," she said. "He's not giving me a ring back or taking it. He says I've got to find out who I am without Dean's story, and then he'll still be there."

"He means it."

"I know. It's the nicest thing anyone's ever done to me, and I hate it."

She laughed, and then she was crying, and I held her the way I hadn't since she was fifteen.

Elliott came out of the bedroom, dressed, and made her tea without being asked.

We had been sitting there for twenty minutes when the buzzer rang downstairs.

It rang again, long and hard.

Briana went white.

"That's him. He followed me. I took the car keys out of his coat, and he's been calling all night."

"Stay here," I said.

"Rose."

"Stay."

I went out onto the landing and stood at the top of the stairs.

Dean was coming up fast, two at a time, in yesterday's suit with his tie gone.

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