Page 84 of Wicked Games

Push and pull.

“I regret it,” I tell them. “It was none of my business. Just because I suspected, didn’t mean I had to tell you. I did it to hurt Margo, not to help you.”

Lenora swipes at her cheek. “It was heartbreaking. But not for us. We’ve done our best to put Isabella’s death behind us. Our hearts broke forMargo, that she had?—”

She shakes her head, looking back at Margo. I wonder if they’ve had this heart to heart before, or if I’m the catalyst.

Robert steps out of the way, waving me inside. “No use letting the heat out. We can have this conversation inside.”

Lenora grudgingly moves aside, and I go straight to Margo. I cup her cheeks. Times like these, she wavers between fierce and ethereal. The girl I knew as a child lived up to her last name, but not now. I just need to pull her string until she unravels. Until she finds her center.

“Hold tight,” I say under my breath, and then I turn toward Lenora and Robert. They’re not going to like this. “I have something for you.”

They watch me warily.

I take the folded note out of my pocket, handing it to Lenora. “It was in the back of a picture frame.”

She shakes her head and doesn’t take it.

My hand hangs in the air, the note pinched between my fingertips, while I wait for her to move. “It’s a note from Isabella.”

I ignore Margo’s quiet exhale behind me.

Robert reaches out and snags it. “Give us a minute.”

I nod, taking Margo’s hand. I guide her away, up the stairs.

“What are you doing here?” she whispers. “I thought?—”

I tap the last picture before her bedroom. The smiling Bryans. “While you were missing, I snuck up here. I was going to take this picture and see if I…” There’s not a good way toexplain this. “I was going to show it to your mother and see if she remembered Isabella.”

Her gasp is a knife between my ribcage.

“You know where my mother is?”

I look at her. “I did.”

Now I don’t.

“Where is she?”

“She was at a motel.” I herd her into her room, shutting the door behind us. “She’s not anymore.”

She goes straight to the window, holding herself. Is she searching for her mother out there? Wondering if she’s watching, waiting for the right chance to take her back?

I get angrier by the second. Amber doesn’t want Margo—far from it. She still holds resentment for her daughter. Gave her away when she was ten, before her dad even got arrested. She just woke up and decided,I’m out.

And now Margo thinks she’s come for her?

“Your mother is a drug addict,” I say. “She came for money and nothing else.”

She flinches like I hit her.

“She comes back every so often to beg at the shoes of the Asher family. Doesn’t matter who. Once we find out she’s in town, we do whatever we can to make her leave.”

She presses her hand to the windowpane. “Stop it.”

“I’m telling you the truth now, Margo. You asked for it, but I’ve been trying to save you from it.”

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