Page 257 of The Billion Heirs Boxed Set

He nods and fiddles until the phone voice tells me to head south for two blocks.

“It’s thirty minutes from here,” Miles says. “The map’s all red, meaning more fucking traffic.”

“If we’ve come here to sit in traffic all day, we need to stop for a drink. Hit the drive thru or a gas station,” Austin orders from the back. “Remind me of this weather when it’s December and there’s three feet of snow on the ground.”

I agree. I’m melting, but I’d rather be buried in snow than sweat to death. If we linger here, we’ll turn to fucking dust.

As I head out of Avery’s neighborhood, I vow to myself once I get Avery in my arms again, I’m never letting go, and I’m never going to come back.

25

AVERY

Debriefing sucks. It’s not enough that Jarvis and I filed our report, but now we have to sit in a conference room with the higher ups and justify everything we did on the case. At this point, I’m damned glad I didn’t take that information off the book from Hayes. Turns out, I didn’t need to pull Chance’s DNA from Grady’s hair strand. Just as well.

I’m on autopilot, answering the questions lobbed at me, while the conversation with my mother last night drones in my head.

“Jonathan Bridger didn’t write that letter.”

“No, baby. I did.” She shakes her head, a sob choking out of her throat. “It was cruel and it broke my heart to be so nasty to you, but I had to make sure you ’wouldn’t try to go back. And that’s not even the worst part.”

I swallow down the nausea that threatens to force itself up my throat. How could there be something worse than a mother ruining her daughter’s life? “What else? Nothing can possibly surprise me now.”

She draws in a deep breath, closes her eyes…and pauses.

“For Christ’s sake, Mom. Spit it all out, would you?” My patience is wearing thin, and the huge dinner is like a cannonball sitting in my gut.

“Bridger told me I was on notice. That when I heard from him, I had to be ready to hightail it out of town within twenty-four hours, and I’d better be sure you’d never look back.”

“Right.” I sigh. “I get it. You had the letter ready. Literally on standby for the guy.” I shake my head, wondering how my mother could be so damned harsh and brutal to her own daughter.

My God, the words she used…

It was fun, but it’s over. You’re good and all, but I can’t keep you. You have to know that. I’m a Bridger and you’re… well, you’re just another pussy I fucked at the spring.

The letter turned to ashes within an hour after I read it. Once Mom and I were on the road, I lit it afire and threw it out the car window.

“I had the letter ready, and once you read it, I knew you wouldn’t fight me on leaving. I had Jonathan Bridger’s money and hotels booked to get us here to Arizona.”

“Did you choose Arizona?”

“No, he did. He knew Chance hated the heat.”

“Jeez…” I shake my head. I don’t know what to feel. Numbness. Shock. Anger. Betrayal. Sadness. Disappointment. “I have to go to bed.”

“Not yet. You have to know everything.”

“What the hell else is there?” I rub at my temples, trying to ease the ache, wondering if I’m going to upchuck tonight’s expensive dinner all over my living room floor.

“He had the two of you watched, and he chose the day we had to leave.”

“Right, you said that—” I drop my jaw. “Oh. My. God. He knew. He fucking knew! He knew Chance and I made love. He waited for me to give his son my virginity, and then he took him away from me!” I rise then, pace across the worn carpeting. “He truly was evil.”

“He was, sweetheart.” Mom wrings her hands. “And I’m so sorry for my part in all of this.”

She could have told me the truth at any point in the last fifteen years. Even last week, when I told her I had to go back to Bayfield for a case. Yet, she didn’t. Not once.

I walk to my bedroom and cry myself to sleep.