“Yeah, yeah, I know. You agreed so your debt would be square,” he said. He took a long sip of his beer. “But I really don’t see why—”

There was a knock on the door, interrupting whatever Jackson was going to say.

“Excuse me.”

I whipped my head around half expecting to see Annabelle Martin, the subject of our conversation, standing there, but it wasn’t her. It was Lupita. I was certain the flicker I felt wasn’t disappointment but rather indigestion.

“Hi, Lupita. What is it?” I asked.

“There is someone here to see you, and I . . . I wasn’t sure what to say,” she said. She looked ill at ease, and I knew it was because I hadn’t allowed any visitors inside the house in over nine months. I was like the proverbial wounded animal. I didn’t want anyone to see me weak or in pain.

I wondered if it was Annabelle, coming to argue her case to use the hot tub. I felt my curiosity surge. At a distance, she was lovely, and I found I was eager to see her up close, especially after Jackson’s description of her.

“Who is it?” I asked. I tried to keep my expression neutral in case Annabelle was standing in the hallway behind Lupita.

Nothing prepared me for my housekeeper’s answer, however.

“She says she’s your sister, Lexi.”

My heart stopped, and for a stone-cold second, I was certain I was going to blink out again.

9

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Who did you say was here?”

“Your sister,” Lupita answered but another voice joined hers, and a woman stepped around Lupita and entered the room. “Hi, Nicky, it’s me, Lexi.”

Both Jackson and Lupita had comically slack-jawed expressions of surprise on their faces. I supposed it would have been funny if it wasn’t such a gut punch to see my baby sister, standing in the middle of the room, looking at me expectantly.

I wanted to charge across the floor and scoop her up in a hug just like I used to when she was five and I was ten. But I couldn’t get up. In an instant, my heart rate accelerated, my hands began to tingle, and my left leg went numb. I flailed around on the couch for a second, fighting for breath until coolness prevailed. I rolled my panic into a stretch and then slumped back into a relaxed pose, which likely appeared as a particularly unfriendly greeting to the sibling I hadn’t seen since I had struck out on my own at sixteen, but what could I do? I was freaking out and I couldn’t walk.