Dani shook her head. "No. I don't have anything to say to her. I hope she doesn't die. But if anything happens to you because of her, I'll never forgive her for having that nurse call you. I don't know what she was thinking. She stayed dead all these years. Why bring you here now? And why didn't she call me?" Dani bit down on her lip. "She didn't care to call me, so I'm ready to go."

"I think she only had my number. She knew I would tell you."

"Or she thought I wouldn't respond. That I'd turn my back, the way I did before."

Her words didn't make me want to offer comfort, because I didn't like that Dani had kept the secret from me.

"We don't know why she did anything," I said. "There's no point in arguing about it. You need to go home, and I need to stay. I'll be fine. I promise."

"I wish you could make that promise, Brynn, but I don't think Mom expected to end up where she is. I'm sure she thought she'd be fine, too."

I didn't know about that. I had a feeling that she'd run away because she was very much afraid that she was going to end up exactly where she was.

CHAPTER NINE

Dani and I didn't talk on the drive back to my mother's house. It was the first time in forever that I felt disconnected from her. Of course, we'd fought over the years. We were sisters with different personalities, but we'd always had a bond that was unbreakable, a connection that was ridiculously close.

I didn't feel close to her now. Some of that had to do with her keeping a secret from me for so long. I still didn't know how to feel about that betrayal. Maybe she had talked herself into thinking she'd just imagined seeing our mother, but we still should have discussed it.

A car horn beeped behind me, and I realized the light had turned green. Several minutes later, I pulled up in front of my mother's house. As we got out of the car, Dani saw the bloodstains on the sidewalk and froze.

"Is this where…" she asked, her voice falling away.

"I think so," I said. Footsteps drew my attention away from my sister. An older man approached us with a vase of flowers in his hand. He was of medium height, with thinning blond hair and pale skin. He wore beige slacks and a blue polo shirt that matched the blue in his eyes. When he reached us, his jaw dropped in surprise.

"Who—who are you?" he stuttered. "My God! You both look just like Laura."

"She's our mother," I replied. "I'm Brynn. This is Dani."

"She's your mother?" he echoed. "She never said she had children."

"Well, she did." I was getting tired of hearing how my mother had erased us from her life.