Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [124]
Yeah, that was me, lazing around like a slug all the time.
She balanced on the edge of the mattress. “Something wrong with you?”
“Got a little chilled yesterday. Better to be safe than sorry. How’d you get here?”
“The bus driver dropped me off like last time.”
“Ah. What’s up?”
“I wanted to give you the souvenir I bought in Denver.” She passed me a small item packaged in newspaper.
I unwrapped a shot glass. With the Denver skyline etched on one side, and Colorful Colorado! on the 441
other. “Thanks, Britt.”
“I know you’ll use it since you drink all the time. Most of them had Denver Broncos or Denver Nuggets, or Colorado Rockies or Colorado Avalanche emblems on the sides. Couldn’t find any with bull riders.”
She had such a high opinion of me and I felt myself bristle.
“I came out to the barn to surprise you with it yesterday.”
My gaze caught hers. “When?”
“Right after you got there. I snuck in the side door, and I heard . . .”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Shit. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“Yes. You always say I can ask you anything. I’m asking you: don’t call the sheriff on DJ and turn him in for what he done.”
Not what I’d expected. “If you heard it all maybe you should understand—”
“Understand what? That man was a bad, bad
man and I’m glad he’s dead. I wish I woulda done it.”
Angrily, she wiped the tears glistening on her lashes.
“Daddy is right. My mom shoulda never hired him and it’s not fair to make DJ pay for Mom’s mistake.”
“Your mom did not kill Melvin Canter, so she didn’t make that fatal mistake.”
“But if she wasn’t so stupid to hire him without talking to Daddy about it first, then none of this 442
would’ve happened!”
Why was she sticking up for him? “Does Dad
know you’re here?”
She shook her head.
“Did you hear all of what he said yesterday? That he’d rather let people think Melvin sexually molested you, rather than DJ?”
“I don’t care. You’re the one who’s always telling me it doesn’t matter what people think. They can think whatever they want just as long as they don’t send my brother away.”
“He killed someone.”
“So did you. You told me it was self-defense. So it’s no different.”
Stung, I snapped, “That is not for you to decide. That’s why there are cops and lawyers and a legal system.”
“It’s not for you to decide either,” she retorted. “DJ
is my only brother and you don’t have the right to try to take him away from me just because your brother is dead!”
My heart actually stopped.
“How can you love Ben so much and hate DJ? He’s as much your brother as Ben ever was. Is it because you think Ben was more special because he was Indian?”
“Brittney—”
“DJ is the only brother I’ll ever have and I’ll do anything to save him. I will tell people I killed that bad guy because he was touching me and stuff . . . and they’ll believe me when I tell them I had the tractor 443
out because I was trying to hide his body.”
Why hadn’t I considered she’d have the same
unwavering love and devotion for her brother that I had for mine? Just because I didn’t feel that way about DJ didn’t mean she didn’t.
Brittney’s hazel eyes burned with a mean glint I’d never seen on her sweet face. But I recognized the look; she’d learned it from our father.
I realized she was far more our father’s daughter than I ever was. I’d tried to ignore all her smarmy comments, her backhanded compliments, the overwhelming guilt she loaded on me. I’d brushed aside her behavior, conveniently blaming it on her age, not her genetics.
I was such a fool. DJ had been right; so had Kim. Brittney didn’t care about me. She used me as leverage with both her mother and father. Why hadn’t I seen it?
In that moment the tiny crack between us
splintered into a full-blown fissure and I tumbled into the abyss of dark truth. I hit rock bottom with the realization my relationship with her was as fractured as my reasoning for it.
Last year I’d told Sheriff Richards that Brittney and I might share the same blood, but we did not share the same father. I’d always believed it, abided by