Page 29 of Burden of Proof

“What’s wrongwith you?” Smith asked when we reached the front of the store.

I gave him a smile and yanked a shopping cart out of the carousel.

“Nothing is wrong with me,” I said. “Beyond an absolute crisis of character and a dead fish.”

Smith’s eyes went wide. “Betty died?”

“Cassandra,” I corrected.

Smith scrunched his nose and followed me into the store. Once we were through the sliding double doors, I stopped and let him take the lead. He had a list written on paper, because of course he did. He was more Marshall’s brother than Hunter was, that was for sure.

“Tell me about Cassandra.” Smith stopped at the produce, bagging up some lettuce, onions, and celery.

“She died,” I answered with a shrug. “I think she must have been shocked from the transfer. I don’t know. Maybe the water was the wrong temperature, or I moved her too fast, or I gave her bad?—”

Smith gestured angrily at me with a carrot. “It’s not your fault the five-dollar fish died on arrival.”

I swatted the carrot out of my face, and he shoved it into a bag.

“That’s what Silas said.”

“Silas is right.”

I snorted and rolled the cart along behind him as he collected his produce before making a left toward the butcher counter at the back of the store. Propping my elbows on the handlebar of the cart, I rested my chin in my hands while Smith consulted his list and then asked for two ribeye steaks and four chicken breasts.

“Why are you lonely?” I asked, which earned me a sharp glare.

He collected his meat and dropped it into the cart, hooking his fingers around the edge and pulling me toward the chips and crackers aisle. I trailed behind him, frowning at the back of his head until he stopped and grabbed a bag of tortilla chips from the shelf.

“You know, when my mom basically sold me out for a seven figure payday, I was angry.”

“Wait, wait.” I pushed the cart into his hip. “When she what?”

He let out a sardonic laugh. “Do you not know the Covington lore?”

“I don’t know anything about payouts.”

“Our father cares about nothing more than the Covington name,” Smith explained. “Every time a child pops up, he offers a huge like, I don’t know, child support payout or something, and then he ends up with full custody.”

“Normally it’s the other way around?”

“Yeah. Well, we found a new brother recently,” he said.

They’d found out about the new brother the night I’d met Smith for the first time.

“I remember.”

“Hismom didn’t take the money. Raised him without ever letting him know shit about our father. Only put it into the will so he could do whatever he wanted with the information after she died.”

Smith reached for a box of Cheez-Its next, then a package of cookies, and another package of cookies, and a third.

“Sweet tooth?” I asked.

He scoffed.

“I’ve always looked at Marshall as being more of a father figure than our actual father, but I really don’t want anything to do with the Covington name.”

“That’s fair.”