Page 416 of The Sinner: James

My eyes move over her face as I try to put two and two together.

“Wait a minute... Is that why you didn’t keep in touch with any of us?”

She sighs.

“It wasn’t only that.”

Another pause ensues as she gathers her thoughts.

“As I said before, there wasn’t only one reason. It was the promise that I’d made to him and the fact that everyone else had moved on with their lives. Mom, you. Our father. I also felt I had nothing to be proud of or boast about. My life was far from glamorous. I was a typical twenty-something-year-old struggling to finish college, find a man, and build a life. I didn’t feel like I was on a great path. And I was angry too. That’s why I held a grudge against you.”

“Why did you promise him that? And when did you do that?”

Quietly, she searches my eyes.

“Do you remember when I came to New York for your birthday?”

“Yes.”

“I was in town, learned about your business, and paid you a visit. Lex Harrington walked out of your apartment that day, and I saw him kissing you, which made me fume, so I took a few pictures of you two.”

My heart stops for a second.

“What?”

“Yes, I did. And then I sent them to James Sexton.”

I turn to stone.

She spends a couple of seconds taking in my baffled expression.

“You left your phone on the table and went to the kitchen while I was there. That’s how I got his cell phone number.”

“Why would you do something like that? Lex was there as a friend. What you saw that day wasn’t what you thought it was.”

“It didn’t matter what I thought. It was how it looked, and you two sure looked like you were in love with each other.”

“James never said anything to me.”

“He didn’t need to. He said it to me.”

“When?”

“Weeks later, when I was back in New York trying to do what you did for money and spectacularly failed. I had no idea what I did wrong, if anything, but I wasn’t cut for it. Eventually, I learned that your business was built on skill as much as on connections, and I wasn’t very good at establishing that. So, to make a long story short, I gave up on the idea, but that didn’t solve my money problem. I had two more years of school and no money left. Plus, a lot of debt, so I came back to you.”

“To me? When was that? I can’t remember.”

She smiles.

“There’s no way you could remember. You never knew I was there.”

I look at her, intrigued.

“You were in the bathroom when James opened the door. I knew he suspected I’d sent those pictures when we locked eyes. He threatened to track me down and put me away if I pulled that sort of thing on you again. I don’t know what he meant by that exactly. He also confessed he probably wouldn’t have been back with you had I not sent those pictures to him. So there was my punishment. That aside, I wanted to talk to you and ask for money that day. He figured me out quickly and suggested I should ask him instead. He said my chances of getting it from you were almost non-existent, and he was probably right, so I cut a deal with him. He said he’d give me money for school if I stayed away from you until I started to behave like a sister to you.”

I look at her, perplexed.

“I took the deal because I needed the money. But he was right. I did behave like a bitch all those years. I asked him for forty thousand dollars, and he gave me one hundred thousand dollars. Anything would’ve helped me at that point––even less money than that––but having more money than I needed pulled me out of the hole, made me finish my school, and allowed me to put a down payment on this apartment.”

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