Page 17 of Luck of the Devil

I understand, Harper. I’m sorry you had to go through that.

Since I knew he was by his phone, I called him, deciding this was better than communicating through text.

“Hey,” he said when he answered. “I was hoping you’d want to talk.”

“Yeah,” I said, a lump filling my throat. “I figured it would be better this way.”

“How are you doin’, kiddo?” he asked in a gentle tone.

Tears swam in my eyes. A new nickname. He’d been trying them out over the last month, saying he wanted to get closer. Surprisingly, this one didn’t grate against my nerves like the others had.

“Um…” I looked up and blinked. I needed to keep it together. “I’m hanging in there. How about you? I’m sure this couldn’t have been easy given how you’d moved out last month.”

“No matter what happened between us, I never would have wanted this for your mother,” he said emphatically.

Was he talking about not wanting her dead, or was he suggesting he had something to do with it? “I know. I never thought otherwise.”

“Good.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m sure you’re dealing with a whole host of feelings right now.”

“Yeah.” I cleared my throat, then took a breath. While I’d planned to ask him to meet me for dinner, I doubted he’d want to come here, and I wasn’t so sure I wanted to look him in the eye when I asked him some hard questions. A number one rule in interrogating a suspect was to do it in person. Body language often said more than their actual words, but then again, he wasn’t a suspect, and this wasn’t an interrogation. It was a daughter asking her father questions. There was also the thought that if he did have something to do with it, I wasn’t sure I could face him.

“I keep going over the last month,” I said, struggling to find the words that would get him talking without making him suspicious. I couldn’t tip him off. If he was innocent, I didn’t want to destroy our fragile truce. But if he did know something, I couldn’t give him a reason to hide it better. “She just seemed so off.”

“Well,” he said, gruffly. “Keep in mind I moved out and asked for a divorce. As far as she was concerned, I also stole her identity, which was being the wife of a prominent attorney. She thought she was nothing as a divorced woman.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I muttered, not that I didn’t believe him. I wasn’t surprised by her antiquated view.

“You and I and everyone else knows that, but she put her entire being into being a wife and mother. Not to mention, she was raised to believe divorce was wrong, and her parents have been married for decades.”

“But she hadn’t been in contact with her mother in years.”

“Maybe,” he said carefully. “Maybe not.”

“Wait,” I said, sitting up straighter. “She was in contact with her?”

“After Andi…” His voice broke and he took a moment before he continued. “Your mother had a falling out with her parents and they went no contact. I can’t be sure, but I think she still talked to her parents from time to time.”

“And she kept it a secret from you? Why?”

“Part of the reason they stopped talking was because her mother blamed me for Andi’s death.”

“What?”

“And to my surprise—your mother, who was looking for scapegoats wherever she could find them—actually stood up for me and cut contact.”

That was because I had been her scapegoat. Maybe she couldn’t handle adding my father to the list and alienating everyone around her. “That’s crazy. Why would it be your fault?”

“Why did your mother blame you?” he asked softly. “Sometimes there’s no rational reason.”

He was right, of course, but her reaction had still shredded what was left of my heart. Still, I couldn’t make sense of why my grandparents would turn on him. They’d seemed to love him before Andi’s murder. I’d never been my mother’s favorite so it was easier to understand why she’d blamed me.

Had my father done something to rouse their suspicion? It had happened years before his involvement with J.R. Simmons, not that Simmons had anything to do with John Michael Stevens. But what if Simmons wasn’t the first criminal my father had struck a deal with?

“Mom’s parents liked you. Why did they blame you?”

“I really can’t get into it tonight, Harper,” he said, sounding exhausted. “We can talk about it some other time, okay? We buried your mother six hours ago.”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me, because my throat was clogged with emotion. “Yeah,” I finally choked out.