Page 14 of Family Bonds- Garrett & Justine

“Are you kidding me?” Jordan said. “I’m following in Dad’s footsteps in the hospital he worked at. He was murdered by our stepmother. You think I’m not being talked about or looked at? You didn’t work in the hospital like me.”

“I know,” she mumbled, trying to swallow through the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Jordan. I feel guilty I deserted you.”

“You should and you did,” Jordan said, laughing.

If it wasn’t for the fact she knew her sister was joking, she might have started to cry.

“I had to do it. Elise wasn’t leaving me alone. She never bothered you.”

Elise was their stepmother who was currently awaiting trial.

“Once she found out all the funds were frozen and she didn’t have enough money for her defense,” Jordan said. “She was hounding you.”

“Not my fault,” she said. “Dad had his reasons for putting everything in our names and only leaving that one joint account for Elise’s use.”

She knew those reasons.

Her stepmother was a drunk.

It seemed the past year Elise drank more or wasn’t around and passed out or hungover, with her father making one excuse after another.

But many knew the truth.

What they didn’t know were the dirty lies that Elise was spreading that she shot their father in self-defense.

Justine couldn’t listen to another thing said about her father that sheknewwasn’t true.

“She knows not to call me,” Jordan said. “I’ve cursed her out one too many times when we were younger. You were the nice one between us.”

She laughed. Jordan was fiery and wouldn’t put up with their stepmother trying to boss them around.

Justine’s light blonde hair and eyes always gave off the illusion she was an angel.

In her father’s eyes, she felt like that.

Their father didn’t remarry until Justine was fourteen and Jordan was twelve. It’d been hard to accept, but she wanted her father happy.

For eight years after her parents’ divorce, they’d lived with their father and rarely saw their mother. Elise coming into the picture upset the dynamics more for Jordan than it did her.

“I’m not sure about that,” she said. “I just didn’t argue as much as you did.”

“And because of that, Elise thought she could talk to you.”

“She tried to pressure me,” she said. “It didn’t work.”

“Bribe,” Jordan said. “That was the word you used all the time. She tried to buy your friendship and approval.”

It made her think of Garrett Mills today coming in with donuts.

She probably gave off the wrong impression when she said that, but it was a trigger for her.

She’d backed up as fast as she could when she realized what she’d been doing.

“It didn’t work,” she said. “Is she bothering you now?”

“No,” Jordan said. “You know I changed my number. She hasn’t been able to figure it out. I blocked her emails. What about you?”

“Just the normal. I ignore it as best as I can. I’m not giving her money. Dad left it all to us. End of story. The last thing I’d do is give her anything for her defense. Even if what she says is true.”

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