Graveminder by Melissa Marr Page A

them, and then she’d decide what to do next.

Chapter 17
     
    R EBEKKAH WAS GRATEFUL FOR B YRON’S SILENCE AS THEY RODE THE short distance to Maylene’s house. Some part of her rebelled at how easy it always was to pick up where they’d left off. At the beginning, Byron had been her guilty secret. And Ella knew. Rebekkah didn’t mean for anything to happen; she’d loved her stepsister. One night. One kiss. That was it. She shouldn’t have, and she knew it then, but it was only once. It wouldn’t have happened again. We wouldn’t have ... It took years before she could even talk to Byron without feeling guilty. Then one night, too many drinks and years of wanting edged her across the line she swore she wouldn’t cross. Afterward, he’d become the one addiction she couldn’t shake, but every time she let him in she thought about her sister. Ella knew how I felt, how he felt, and she died knowing it.
    The car stopped. Byron opened the door and got out.
    “You ready for this?” he asked.
    “No, not really.” Rebekkah took a deep breath and followed him to the front porch and into her grandmother’s home. My home. She didn’t want to know where in the house Maylene had died, but knowing that she had died there made it hard not to wonder. Later. She would ask questions later—of Byron, of Sheriff McInney, of William.
    Cissy sat in Maylene’s chair, and by the look on her face, she wasn’t feeling the least bit friendly. She glared fixedly at Rebekkah and Byron as they entered the room.
    “Aunt Cissy,” Rebekkah murmured.
    “Becky.” Cisssy held a cup of tea in one hand and a saucer in the other. Her tone was scathing as she said, “I assume he told you.”
    Rebekkah paused. This wasn’t the time or place. “Please don’t.”
    “My mother was killed here in her home. My home ... Right there.” Cissy closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them to glare at Rebekkah. “They found her out there in the kitchen. Did he tell you that part?”
    “Cecilia! Please, not now.” Daniel Greeley, one of the councilmen, had walked into the room. Rebekkah had met him a few times during her visits to Maylene, and she was grateful to see him today. He stood like a sentinel in front of Cissy.
    “Oh, it’s fine for me to know? It’s okay for my daughters to know? But we have to protect her ?” Cissy stood up so abruptly that the rocker clattered into the wall. She glared at Rebekkah. “You aren’t even family . You don’t need to be here. Just say you don’t want it, Rebekkah. That’s all you have to do.”
    Everyone stopped talking. People were politely leaving the room or turning their backs as if they couldn’t hear the conversation. However, Cissy was loud enough that there was no way not to hear her.
    “Mother.” Liz stepped up beside Cissy. “You’re upset, and—”
    “If she had any morals, she’d leave.” Cissy glared at Rebekkah. “She’d let Maylene’s real family have what’s rightly theirs.”
    For a moment, Rebekkah was too stunned to react. She was sickened by the idea that Cissy’s hostility was over something as petty as money and things. Had the years of anger toward Rebekkah and her mother been because of Cissy’s greed?
    “Get out,” Rebekkah said softly. “Now.”
    “Excuse me?”
    “Get out.” Rebekkah stepped away from Byron, putting herself closer to Cissy, but not too close; she kept her arms at her sides to stop herself from grabbing hold of the woman and tossing her out. “I am not going to stand in Maylene’s home and have you do this. I get that you’re angry about the funeral, but you know what? I’ve watched Maylene do the exact same thing when you started caterwauling, but she’s not here now to tell you to stop making a spectacle of yourself.”
    Both twins were now standing beside their mother. Teresa had taken Cissy’s arm in her hand in a gesture that could be either supportive or restrictive. Liz stood with her arms folded over her chest. The