Page 51 of Burning Daylight

There’s no way in hell I’m having any more of this conversation with her. Not when I’m still reeling from the reality of who Juliette is, and the insinuation of how dangerous her family could be.

I had my hand around her throat, and my fingers in her cunt, and her sweet fucking ambrosia on my tongue, and ignorance really had been bliss.

Now the knowledge feels like a ticking bomb.

“Which is it, Ma? You want his money or you want me to go there and get the girl? Pick a lane.”

She lifts a shoulder. “I’m just saying…you’ve got options.”

It’s surprising to see her so calm, considering what she just walked in on. But when her head lolls a bit to the side and she sighs, closing her eyes and reopening them slowly, I rememberwhyshe doesn’t care.

Oxy does that to a person. And so does heroin.

“Tell me why you’re here.” I change the subject. “Or why you stood me up at the coffee shop.”

Sighing, she leans back. “I already told you. I’m here to pick up the money for Brooke’s seizure medicine.”

My chest burns at the reminder of Brooklynn.

“And why was the original money gone, Ma?” I ask, my voice hardening. “Matter of fact, why the fuck isBrookepaying for her own meds in the first place? She’s seventeen.”

Mom straightens on the couch and blinks at me, but she doesn’t have an answer. Or maybe she does but stays silent because she knows I won’t like whatever it is.

I smile tightly. “Nothing to say now?”

Her chin lifts, and for just a moment there’s guilt floating through her gaze.

And there she is.

Heather Argent.

The mom I used to have.

The one who’d count my teeth while I brushed, and let me stay up late to watch her favorite Disney movies. The one who spun me around until we collapsed into piles of laughter, and who blew bubbles in the living room just to make Brooklynn andme smile, even though the soap soaked into the carpet and made the floor slick for days.

For just a split second, she’s real. Like I could reach out and grab her.

And then…gone.

Snapped back into the woman in front of me, the one who got hooked on pain pills and never climbed back out of the hole they threw her in. The one whose eyes are half closed, whose words come a second too late, and who knows how to manipulate silence with the emotions that she caused me to feel.

Or maybe that flicker of guilt was never there at all, and it’s just the homesick kid desperate to see a mother who no longer exists.

That seems more likely.

My gut cramps at the thought, and I push it down, down, down.

“You’re not insinuating thatI?—”

I smack my hand on the coffee table, and it rattles the few odds and ends on the top.

Ma jumps.

“Don’t bullshit me,” I bite out. “I’m begging you to be honest. To dig down somewhere deep and show that you still have a shred of decency left. Brooke is yourdaughter, not some bartering tool. That money was for her to have a good life without depending on anyone other than herself. To be able to survive away from all this.”

“Away fromme, you mean.”

I blow out an aggravated sigh.