The Sister-in-Law, Pamela Crane [have you read this book txt] 📗

effort to comfort him. ‘True, life isn’t as easy as spinning a wheel and finding bliss. But, much like this game, life can throw you some pretty fun curveballs.’

‘What do you mean?’ Jackson asked.

‘Well, like how I met your Uncle Lane when I least expected it. And we fell in love so quickly and now I have a baby in my belly. Life is unpredictable.’

‘What about when life is always horrible? And scary?’ Jackson met my eyes, something he never did. In them I watched a memory flicker to life, sparking, stiff gears turning. This was where Jackson and I understood each other. Death haunted us both. ‘Are you talking about losing your dad?’

‘Yeah, and about when I killed my sister.’

‘Jackson!’ Elise yelled, thrusting her fist into his ribcage. ‘You’re not allowed to talk about that! That’s a secret. We don’t tell secrets, remember?’

Jackson shot Elise a glare, rubbing the spot where she had hit him. ‘But Aunt Candace is family. I thought family was safe.’

‘Not her,’ Elise whispered just loud enough.

‘What’s he talking about?’ I wanted to know, and yet I didn’t. Since the moment I met him, Jackson had struck me as an odd kid, a little too quiet, and mostly creepy. Lately, the weird factor had gotten worse, his black eyes rimmed in sleepless circles, his unwashed hair hanging over his ears. His pale skin gave him a ghostly appearance that reminded me of Children of the Corn.

‘Nothing.’ Elise stood, hauling Jackson up off the couch with her. ‘Let’s go outside. I need to talk to you,’ she shot me a look, ‘in private.’

Excluded from the family yet again. It was probably something I should get used to. My phone dinged with a text while I scooped up the popcorn bowl:

I’m coming for a visit. I think it’s time we had a chat.

The text came from a blocked number. So I replied:

Who is this? How did you get this number?

No reply. I debated texting again, then thought better of it. Don’t engage.

I cleaned up the board game and drained evidence of the soda while the kids shuffled outside. While they conspired – or whatever it was they were doing – I decided I’d get some swimming in. Heading upstairs to change into my swimsuit, I passed Harper’s open bedroom door, stopped mid-stride, took a step back. A peek wouldn’t hurt.

Everything was in obsessively neat order, not a single item of clothing out, as if the room was only intended to be photographed, never lived in. Bed wrinkle-free, pillows perfectly fluffed, floor swept clean, even her nightstand dusted and sparse, with only a lamp, a hardcover copy of All You Ever Needed to Know about Plants, and a small, leather-bound book centered on the table. A journal, perhaps? A glance inside could give me insight into what crazy rattled around in her brain.

I picked it up. Checked behind me. Clear. I heard the kids chatting outside below the open window. Just a quick look.

The scribble wasn’t that of an adult but of a child. So it was Elise’s journal. I wondered why Harper had it. I flipped through pages of idle musings from a little girl’s perspective. The boys she liked. The bully she hated. The friend who betrayed her. Common themes that draped over all our lives from childhood into adulthood. I paused to read an entry about her brother, chuckling as she recounted how he’d farted in her face. Where was this version of playful Jackson? When had he turned so withdrawn and bleak? I continued leafing through the pages, pausing at a drawing of a black broken heart. Beneath it were the stains of teardrops, tiny circles of discolored paper dotting the page:

I feel so empty inside. I hate my brother. He took my sister away, and Mom said she’s in heaven, but I don’t want her in heaven. I want her here, beside me, so I can give her belly kisses and braids and paint her nails. Then she can paint my nails, even though she never did it right. She always ended up painting my entire finger. I’d let her paint my whole hand if she would just come back. It’s Jackson’s fault. I saw him, but Mom says I don’t know what I saw. I know what I saw. I saw him kill her, and I can never forgive him.

Jackson killed his sister? I dropped the journal on the bed, my stomach churning. Harper had secrets darker than mine, and that was quite an achievement. Either Lane was protecting them for her, or he didn’t know. But this … this was a big one. Harper was raising a budding murderer.

I had to keep her and her deranged kids away. I had my own child to think of. What if Jackson hurt my baby? If there was one thing I carried with me from my childhood, it was a tactical method of survival. Kill or be killed. Everyone had a weakness, and now I knew Harper’s and exactly how to destroy her.

Chapter 25

Candace

I could swim in your depths forever.

But forever isn’t long enough.

Some days it felt like I watched my life happen around me. I paddled and paddled, but I couldn’t break through. Monica loathed me; it was evident in the way she greeted me with a harsh, insincere ‘Candy’. Harper was jealous of me, as evidenced in her aloof demeanor toward me. Lane was her possession, and God forbid anyone threaten that. I saw the hate in the way she examined me, as if she was inspecting a bug squished between her fingers, but hate suited me. It inspired me to win. As for Lane, well, he was the only good thing going in my life, but he was hiding something big. A secret for his sister. For himself, maybe. Whatever had happened, whatever mysteries he harbored, he’d locked them up tight.

When I mentioned offhandedly in bed the night before about my conversation with the kids, he was quick to