Don't Say a Word - Barbara Freethy [96]
She didn't stop running until she was halfway down the street. She was furious. She was hurt. Most of all she was stunned to realize that Julia was right. She stopped walking to wipe away the tears that were streaming down her face. God! Julia was right. She'd put her life on hold the second her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. She hadn't been able to see the future-because the future would be without her mother. And that was too painful to consider. In the months that had followed, she'd never taken her life off hold. She had no plan, no purpose, no nothing.
And as she looked around, she also realized she had absolutely nowhere to go.
"I can't believe I just said that. I should go after her." Julia stared at the door Liz had recently slammed, feeling incredibly guilty that she'd taken out her frustration on her sister.
"It sounded like you needed to say it."
"I hurt her feelings."
"Probably," Alex agreed.
She shot him a dark look. "You're supposed to say, 'No, you didn't. Don't worry about it'."
He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't have a sister or a sibling. I don't know the protocol."
Frustrated, Julia waved a hand in the air. "Liz has been on me so much the past few days. She wants to run my life, and she criticizes every decision I make.I guess I got tired of it. You're lucky you're an only child."
"I agree." He paused. "Are you going after her or are we looking for the papers?"
She debated for a long moment. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Making decisions had once been easy for her, probably because she'd never had anything really important to decide. Now, every day there seemed to be new, compelling, distracting choices. She'd spent most of the night before weighing the risks and benefits of inviting Alex back into his own bedroom. In the end, she'd taken the safe route and done nothing. She'd slept alone in the bed, with Alex on the couch in the living room. She was still mad at herself for that.
One of these days she would have to do something bold, something completely out of character. Maybe she'd start with letting Liz stew awhile instead of immediately trying to be the peacemaker, as she usually did.
"We're here. Let's search," she said decisively. "I'll talk to Liz later. Maybe if I find out something, it will be easier to make up with her."
"Don't count on it," he said pessimistically. "I have a feeling we've just hit the tip of the iceberg. This situation is going to get worst before it gets better."
"Thanks for that sunny thought," she said as she led him down the hall to the second bedroom.
"I'm a realist. In my job I have to be. The camera doesn't lie."
"But people do. And that's what we have to figure out now. Who was lying and what were they lying about?" She paused in the doorway, not surprised to see the clutter of boxes, books, and clothes. "This will take some time. At least with two of us, it will go faster."
Alex glanced around the room. "What is all this stuff?"
"I'm not sure. My dad sold our family home right after my mom died, and the market was so hot, the house sold in a day. We put some things in storage, because we weren't up to going through it all. I guess the office stuff and my parents' bedroom things are what's in here. Where should we start?"
"Let's work our way into the room."
She knelt down and opened the first box. "It's weird how in the end our lives boil down to things."
"Some really ugly things." Alex held up a statue of a deformed man. "Don't tell me this was on your coffee table."
She laughed. "My mom made that in a sculpting class. It was the first thing she ever made. We took the class together at the recreation center. I wanted to do something artistic, and she wanted to do something with me." Her smile faded as she thought about how much time they'd spent together with all the lies between them.
"Don't do that," Alex said. "Don't replace all the good memories with doubts."
She gave him a curious look.