Page 73 of Say Yes to the Death

“You don’t know anything about her. You don’t know that she still eats strawberry shortcake every year on her birthday because that was the last birthday cake you made her before you left. You don’t know that young Claire would run out and check the mail every day, hoping for a card or some sign that her dad was still alive. Claire is a survivor. She has survived something no one should ever have to witness, and she has flourished for two decades without you.”

“Mindy—” Claire found her voice. “Calm down. It’s okay. But you,” she said, swiveling to point at Jack. “Get out of my house. I don’t care who you work for. You don’t have the right to come into my home without permission.”

Jack frowned. “Claire, I?—”

“Mindy. Get my mother on the phone.” Alice was the only thing in her arsenal enough to scare an FBI agent out of her home.

“Okay, okay.” He backed toward the door. “Take my card.”

Claire stared him down. He might as well have been holding a live snake.

He put the business card on the bar and backed up another step. “I’ll give you some time to process, but I’m afraid we’re on a time limit. There’s no knowing when the next victim will be taken. I’ll be in touch.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

To Do:

- Move to a new city under an assumed name

- Stretch for Field Day

Claire hit “publish” on her blog post and snapped her laptop shut. How was she supposed to focus on engagement party etiquette when her deadbeat dad had just shown up out of the blue with a wild conspiracy theory?

She glanced at her bookshelf. A picture of her, Charlie, and Alice in matching Christmas sweaters stood in front of a row of romance novels. They would both be pissed if they knew Jack had shown up out of the blue. Her first instinct was to hide it from them, to preserve the peace. But maybe there was something to what her mom had said. Both of them would want to know if he had reappeared in their lives.

Claire picked up her phone and started a group video chat with her mother and sister before she could change her mind.

“Clairebear? Is everything all right? Are you in jail?” Only Alice’s nose and lips were visible. She sounded less upset than she had the previous day, which was something. Maybe the flowers had helped.

“Why do you always assume I’m in jail? I’m not in jail. Back up some, Mom. Oh, there’s Charlie.”

Charlotte, Claire’s older sister by ten years, appeared onscreen. “Hi, bug,” she said to Claire. “Mom. You need to back up, we can barely see you.”

Alice sighed and took a step back from her camera. In the background, Roy was installing new hardware on their kitchen cabinets.

“Hi, Roy,” Charlotte and Claire said together.

“Hola, niñas.” He waved a drill at them.

“What’s going on?” Charlie was sitting in her home office, twiddling a pencil between her long, slender fingers. Her voluminous hair was twisted back into a bun. A row of abandoned coffee mugs stood behind her. Unlike Claire, she had inherited Alice’s baby blue eyes. Loud music thumped in the background. Her husband, Bill, who was a lawyer by day and drummer by night, must have been practicing again.

“So, I’m trying to be more honest. I just needed to tell you both something.” Claire took a deep breath.

“You’re pregnant!” Charlie screeched.

“God, no.” Claire took her birth control as religiously as many people caught their favorite TV show. A surprise pregnancy would probably be a less painful revelation to make in this moment, though. “Jack is in town. He came to see me.”

There was a ringing silence. Charlie’s mouth fell open. Alice’s eyes bulged.

“Jack? You don’t mean your father?” Alice nearly whispered.

Claire nodded.

“That son of a bitch,” Charlie swore. The pencil in her hand snapped.

Alice collapsed into a kitchen chair. Roy knelt next to her and rubbed her back, muttering comforting words in Spanish.

“What did he want?” Charlie’s mood had shifted on a dime.

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