Inside, the living room was all shadows and disarray, the blinds drawn tight against the clouds outside and all kinds of bills and junk mail scattered over the coffee table and couch. No lights were on in the kitchen either, but at least a little light streamed through one uncovered window. She headed in that direction and opened her mouth to call out a hello, but stopped dead in her tracks when her dad’s voice bellowed from his room at the end of the hallway.

“Boy, you’ve got shit for brains! What the hell were you thinking?”

Well, guess that answered where everyone was.

She changed directions and started clearing a pile of motorcycle magazines off the couch.

Her brother Kevin’s response wasn’t intelligible from the living room, but the tone behind it was reminiscent of all the other lectures her brother had endured over the years. She’d bet his hands were jammed in the pockets of his jeans, a scowl on his face and his face flushed just like all the times before, too.

The irony of those lectures was that Dad was often just as guilty of doing whatever it was Kevin had done (and then some). Hence, the reason Kevin had to fight so hard to keep from blowing a gasket.

Ah, the joy of family.

She plopped onto the couch, unzipped her backpack and dug out the stack of medical bills she’d spent the last week juggling and pleading over. Might as well settle in and get her ducks in a row while the two of them duked out whatever needed duking. Better that than getting in between them. She’d learned that lesson the hard way when she’d tried to referee a drunken fistfight shortly after her mom had died.

“Enough!” Kevin’s shout was loud enough someone could’ve heard it from the street. “You can call me whatever the hell you want, but if you think Bonnie’s gonna have enough to bail you out with Pauley, you’re out of your mind.”

Bonnie’s head whipped up from the stack of bills in her lap so fast her spine cracked. Pauley? As is Pauley Mitchell?

She tossed the bills on top of all the other trash on the coffee table and stalked to her dad’s room. She hadn’t even fully reached the end of the hall before she interrupted whatever Dad was saying to Kevin. “Do not tell me you’re racking up a balance with that shark again. Do you have any idea how long it took me to get your last debt paid off?”

Both men whipped their attention toward Bonnie, eyes wide and jaws slack.

Translation: They were both guilty as hell about something.

Her dad recovered first, shook his head and took on that blustering bullshit demeanor he used whenever he wanted to sweep something under the rug. “Got nothin’ going on with Pauley you need to know about, little girl.” He aimed a warning look at Kevin, then waddled toward her in that painful-looking gait that plagued him these days. He palmed her shoulder when he got close enough and steered her down the hall. “Come on. I’m so damned tired of this bedroom I can’t see straight. Let’s get you settled and you can tell me what you’re here for.”