End Game by Lisa Renee Jones

Author:Lisa Renee Jones
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

CHAPTER TWELVE

Wednesday morning, the day after I’ve buried my brother, death isn’t done with us.

I wake with Emily snuggled against my side, and a text message from Seth: Reagan Morgan is dead. I click the link he’s sent me to find an article on Reagan from a local Texas news organization, with a photo of Emily with blonde hair. I read through the detail and discover no real surprises, or mention of suspects—just typical news reporting, though I do find myself staring at the old image of Emily that is not that old at all. Not so long ago, that version of the woman I love aspired to law school and a life in a courtroom, just as not that long ago I had called law my career. The difference though is that I walked away from mine by choice, while hers was stripped away, and today, when she wakes up, it’s official: she will never be Reagan again. I’m not sure how anyone faces something like that and doesn’t feel the blow, even if it’s what they ultimately want.

Beside me, Emily begins to stir, and that moment of revelation for her is about to arrive. She stretches and rises up on her elbow, blinks at me and exhales. “It’s happening, isn’t it?”

I sit up and take her with me, both of us leaning against the headboard as I hand her my phone with the news piece on the screen. For a full minute, maybe two, she studies it, and the only comment she has when she’s done is a question. “Anything on my Rick?”

“Seth would tell us if there were,” I say. My concern is her. “Let’s talk about you right now. How do you feel?”

“I don’t know,” she says, sounding genuinely baffled. “I don’t think I feel anything.” She glances at the phone again, expanding the photo and holding it up by her face. “This isn’t me,” she says, pointing at the image before eyeing it again. “You know, I use to wish I could be blonde again. But now I don’t.”

“Give it some time for all of this to pass,” I say. “But be blonde if you want to be blonde. No one will be looking for you anymore.”

“That’s just it. I don’t want to be blonde again. That’s Reagan. She was the law student who aspired to win every case she fought in a courtroom. She worried about her brother and loved her single-girl apartment. I’m Emily. I want to start a fashion brand. I still worry about my brother, of course. I can’t help that, but I also love our apartment. I love us. So I guess, really, as angry as I am at my brother, I owe him some thanks as well.”

I pull her close and lay us back down, stroking hair from her eyes. “I have a new appreciation for your brother,” I say. “I thought you’d be upset.”

“Why would I be upset?”

“You’re leaving part of yourself behind.”

“My mother and father are gone,” she says.

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