Relentless(38)
The bedroom door opens and a girl with dark-blonde hair is standing there crying with an expression of rage contorting her dainty features.
“Jamie?” Adam says as he stands from the bed.
“You’re the reason he died?” she says, glaring at him. “I’ve been blaming myself for four years because I was the one who told him to enter that fucking competition and now I find out you’re the one who pushed him off.”
“I didn’t push him off, Jamie. You didn’t hear everything.”
“I heard enough. Get the fuck out of my room!” She opens the door wide and doesn’t look at me as she says, “And take your next victim with you.” Adam moves toward her and she pushes him hard in the chest. “Get out!”
Only Margaret questions why Adam and I aren’t staying for the picnic, but she seems fine with Adam’s explanation that he’ll tell her later. The three-hour drive back to Wrightsville is filled with a silence so heavy I can barely breathe under the weight of it. I don’t think anything can make this weekend worse, until I walk into my apartment and find the certified letter on the breakfast bar.
Chapter Fourteen
Relentless Demands
“THE DEPOSITS HAVE BEEN COMING for almost seventeen years, plus interest.”
“How much?” I demand.
“Two hundred and seventeen thousand, two hundred twenty-nine dollars… and eight cents.”
I stare at the letter on the counter sent from Northstar Bank in Raleigh notifying me of a trust account I will gain access to on my twenty-first birthday. Adam stands behind me rubbing my shoulders as I sit at the breakfast bar with my phone clutched to my ear.
After he carried the suitcase into my apartment and left me with nothing but a quick kiss on the cheek yesterday, I opened this letter and immediately called him to come back. He stayed up with me until three in the morning, though we didn’t really have much to say and the curse of having a roommate-ready bedroom meant we had to sleep in separate twin beds. But right now, the sensation of his hands kneading the tension in my shoulders is enough to make me forget everything that happened at his uncle’s ranch yesterday.
“My mother was not rich. This doesn’t make sense. Who deposited the money into that account?”
“I can’t disclose personal information about the beneficiaries, donors, or trustees over the phone. You’re going to have to come in and show two forms of photo identification.”
I curse myself as I think of all the times Senia begged me to renew my driver’s license. “I don’t have two forms of ID, unless you’ll accept an expired college ID and an expired driver’s license.”
Henry, the bank manager, lets out an exasperated sigh. “Claire, only because I knew your mother and how much she loved you will I allow this. Come in on your birthday with both your expired IDs and another person with two valid forms of ID and I’ll give you what you need.”
I hang up the phone feeling lost. I grew up in a tiny rundown trailer on a lot surrounded by acres of forest. Our nearest neighbor must have been at least a quarter mile away because it felt like it took a million years to get there on foot every time we visited “Grandma” Patty. Nothing about the way we lived gave me any indication that my mother had money, but what Henry just said to me didn’t imply that she did. He said the deposits had been coming in for almost seventeen years. My mother has been dead for more than thirteen years. Someone else was making those deposits.
Once I tell Adam the stipulations, he quickly offers to go with me to Raleigh for my birthday. “That’s perfect because the birthday present I want to give you is in Raleigh.”
I don’t bother asking what he’s getting me because I know he’ll only refuse to tell me, but I’m more than a little apprehensive about turning twenty-one now.
I twist around on the barstool so I’m facing him and I can see the insecurity in his eyes—the look that’s been there since we left his uncle’s house yesterday. He’s wondering if I’m judging him because of what happened to his friend Myles four years ago.
“I’m sorry about what happened to your friend. And I’m sorry you’ve had to live with that for four years. But most of all, I’m sorry that I can’t share my secret with you the way you’ve shared yours with me.” He shakes his head and opens his mouth to say something, but I press a shaky finger to his lips. “But I want you to know that I do love you. And it scares the hell out of me to feel this way about someone I’ve known all of three weeks.”
He grabs my hand and moves my finger away from his lips. “It doesn’t have to make sense; it only has to make you happy. Are you happy?”