Page 34 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

As I’d suspected, the photos didn’t reveal any clues, but I enjoyed hearing about my mother’s childhood.

Her sister was two years younger, just like me and Andi, so she was in plenty of them too.

My grandmother had photographs of my mother up through college, which I found surprising.

Most parents took more photos of their kids when they were cute and adorable, and less when their angels became surly teens.

But my grandmother’s stuffed albums proved her to be the exception.

It was surreal to see images of my mother as she grew from a baby to her high school graduation. She was smiling and happy in most, especially in her younger years. My aunt Hannah, whom I’d barely known, was with her in many of them.

There were plenty of candid shots as well as posed, but I was amazed there were so many of my mother and aunt taken inside their elementary school.

I touched the edge of a photo of a school Halloween party. Most of the kids were wearing cheap store-bought costumes and a good portion of them had plastic masks covering their faces, the kind secured with cheap elastic strings. “Were you a room mother?”

“Oh heavens, no,” she said with a wave of her hand. “They didn’t have those at their school, but I volunteered now and again.” She winked. “I liked to do it on the days they had parties. And since the other parents weren’t there, I made sure to take lots of photos so they could get copies too.”

“That was very thoughtful of you,” Malcolm said.

She shrugged as though it was no big deal, but she seemed pleased by his compliment. “They seemed to appreciate it.”

I struggled to mesh the woman who’d raised me with the young girl and then teen who’d looked so happy.

There were images of her with friends at school and at home at every grade level.

She had photos taken with quite a few kids in her younger years, but by the time she reached junior high school, her friends had changed.

They looked more polished, and I was fairly sure they were in the popular crowd. My grandmother confirmed it.

Studying a photo of my mother and her friends dressed for a cotillion and obviously loving it, I had a new understanding for why my mother had preferred Andi.

I favored jeans and T-shirts, while Andi had loved dresses and skirts and bows in her hair.

I’d been quiet and reserved, but my sister had been larger than life and popular.

And the few friends I’d had had quickly disappeared after Andi’s death.

My mother must have seen my sister as a replica of herself.

The photos dwindled by the time my mother went to college, but during her sophomore year, she’d brought Dad home to meet her parents. Younger versions of them, barely looking like adults, sat on the very sofa we were sitting on now, my dad wearing a nervous smile.

“He was so anxious about meeting us,” my grandmother said, pointing to the photo I’d been studying. “But we loved him immediately.”

“Did Mom love him?” Then I realized how that sounded. “I mean, obviously she loved him. I guess I’m asking if she was head over heels for him?”

“I’d say she loved him, but I don’t think she was head over heels.

At least from what I saw,” she said as she stared pensively at the photo.

“But then she seemed much more mellow, sedate, after they started dating. I asked her once if she was happy, and as expected, she didn’t take it well.

She said she’d grown up, but the grown-up version of her didn’t laugh much.

Your father didn’t cut up much either, so I always wondered if she’d tempered herself for him. ”

That wasn’t something I’d considered, but I supposed it could be true. If she’d thought my father could give her the life she wanted, I could see her toning down her personality to be more appealing to him. How ironic that stiff, snobby person she’d become had ultimately turned him away.

There were photos of their wedding, and then of my mother pregnant. Images of my father putting a crib together and of a baby shower where my mother was surrounded by at least forty women.

“The church here in Jackson Creek gave her a shower,” Grandma said, pointing to photo of a rectangular table covered with a white tablecloth and loaded with gifts. “Your father’s law firm gave her one too, but we didn’t make it for that.”

Many of the photographs showed my mother sitting in a rocking chair in varying stages of opening gifts. She was smiling in the images, but they weren’t the wide, bright-eyed smiles of her youth and teen years. These smiles looked cultivated and slightly fake.

Had my father expected that of her or had she determined that was what he wanted?

Next were tons of photos of me as a baby, starting with my mother and me in the hospital after my birth.

There were only a few photos of my mother holding me.

Instead, I was held by my father and grandparents.

The photographs continued both at our Jackson Creek house and here in my grandparent’s home when Mom and I had stayed for a few months.

They captured Halloween—I was dressed as a pumpkin—Christmas, my first birthday, and then my mother pregnant with Andi.

There were fewer photos of baby Andi than me, and while it was often true that second children were photographed less, these photos had been taken by my grandparents.

This could be proof my mother had begun distancing herself from her parents even earlier than they’d suggested.

The photos dwindled until the year I turned thirteen and had a roller-skating party.

My grandparents had come, but my mother hadn’t.

She’d wanted a tea party theme at home with frilly dresses and tiny cakes, not roller skating, but my father had insisted it was my birthday, not hers, and she had to let me do what I wanted.

She’d gotten pissed and told him if I was having a party at a dirty roller rink, he could plan it himself.

To his credit, he had, not that it was anything fancy.

I’d invited half a dozen friends, and Andi had brought some of her own.

My father had gotten what my mother called a tacky store-bought cake, and it had been one of the best parties I could remember having.

Several parents had asked where my mother was, and my dad had said she’d been suffering from a killer migraine.

It was the last birthday party I ever had. My mother refused to plan one the next year, then after Andi’s death, I’d never wanted one.

All these memories were like a heavy weight on my shoulders, and an ache filled my chest. What had happened to my mother to make her turn out the way she had? And did it have anything to do with what had ultimately killed her?

I didn’t realize my breathing had become labored until Malcolm gave me a concerned look.

“Harper, why don’t we go outside and get some air?”

As he asked, he was already getting to his feet and offering me his hand.

I took it without thinking, mostly because I wasn’t sure I had the presence of mind to find the exit on my own, but once our hands connected, it felt right, like we’d always held hands.

Still, I didn’t give it much thought other than I wanted him to hold my hand, no, needed him to hold my hand.

His touch was the one thing keeping me from losing it.

He led me out the front door and across the yard to the back of his car, then released my hand. It felt wrong to not be connected to him anymore, but I couldn’t very well protest.

What would he do if I asked him to hold it longer?

What would he do if I asked him to hold me ?

But obviously, I couldn’t do either of those things. Even though I suspected he’d give me both if I asked.

He rested his butt against the trunk, and I did the same, my heart beating wildly.

I recognized this for what it was—a panic attack.

I’d had them after Andi had died, and thought I was having a heart attack.

(My mother had accused me of creating unnecessary drama.) Then I’d started having them again after I’d shot the boy in Little Rock.

Alcohol had helped hold them at bay. Did that mean they’d become more common again?

We stood side by side for a few minutes while I struggled to breathe, Malcolm giving me quick glances every so often.

By the time it began to subside, my anxiety was replaced with anger.

What the hell was wrong with me? Millions of people had lost their mothers.

Millions of people had shitty childhoods, and the majority of them weren’t drunks who fell apart without their alcohol crutch.

This wasn’t me. I was strong, goddamn it. I didn’t fall apart.

Liar, a little voice in my head said mockingly. You’ve been unraveling for years, you’ve just tried to outrun it. But you can’t outrun it forever.

I ignored the stupid voice because that wasn’t true at all. I’d had a tough-as-nails reputation in the police department. I’d held my shit together for years, but one trip to my grandparents had me on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

“What the hell are we even doing here?” I spat, my voice breaking.

“We’re looking at photos with your grandmother,” he said evenly, his hands jammed in his front jeans pockets as he stared down the street.

“We told them my mother was dead, found out what little we could, so we should be on our way back to Jackson Creek. Going through ten million photos isn’t helping find out who killed her.”

“You’re right,” he admitted in that frustratingly reasonable voice. “I doubt we’ll find anything in those photos that will lead to who killed her, but you need this.”

I turned on him, so angry I had to clench my hands into tight fists. “Who the hell are you to tell me what I need?”