You Know Who I Am (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries Book 2) by Diane Patterson Page A

God,” I said, trying not to laugh. “Mama still calls her ‘the bastard,’ doesn’t she?”
    “ Bella , I don’t pretend to understand your mother’s attitude toward Stevie—”
    “I understand it. It’s looney tunes. She still blames a baby for breaking up her first marriage. Stevie had nothing to do with being born. She wasn’t responsible for my father fucking around with a ski instructor. Or with half of the women on the Eastern seaboard. Or every seaboard.”
    “Everything that happened as a result of your father’s—”
    “Let’s go with ‘evil’,” I said.
    “His more unfortunate influences on your family…Jane regrets it.”
    “Well, if she hadn’t met him, she certainly wouldn’t have ever met me, would she? How many problems would that have solved right there?”
    He slammed his hand on the armrest of the sofa and stood up. “Your mother loves you. Why can’t you believe that?”
    Did he want an actual list of reasons? “Look on the bright side.” I picked up my glass of water and leaned over the back of my armchair. “If Stevie had never been born, you might not be married to my mother right now. Ever thought about that?”
    “Every day,” he said. That surprised me. “Every day I wonder what my life would be like if I didn’t have Jane and Connie and Alex.”
    Nothing like that had ever come out of the mouths of Husbands One through Three. I would bet money on that, and I’m not the betting kind. Son of a bitch. Well, good for Mama. “I’m not going home to New York unless Stevie comes with me.”
    “Your sister will be taken care of, Trudy. Sorry, Drusilla . For God’s sake, she needs help, not to continue living as you have been. You know this.”
    “So. She needs a better living situation…just not with me.”
    This time he didn’t hesitate. “No, not with you.”
    “And I don’t get to know where she is until…”
    “You show you can act like a responsible adult.”
    “And in a few years I won’t need your say-so, will I?”
    On my thirtieth birthday, I would become one of the richest people in the world. And I wouldn’t need Roberto or anyone to run interference for me. Visions of my thirtieth birthday had gotten me through a lot of sleepless nights.
    He smiled, much more sadly this time. “There is no money unless your mother and I say there is money.”
    It took me a few seconds to understand what he was saying. He was telling me that the trusts I’d been waiting on no longer existed. One of his hands tapped on the armrest of the sofa and the other one picked at the lint on his trousers, and I knew I was screwed.
    Years ago, I figured out Roberto Montesino’s tell. I probably could have made several more fortunes than I already had telling competitors about it, but at the time I was ecstatic that I could use it to beat him at the penny poker games we played. He was such an expressive man that if his hands were moving, he was telling the truth, and when he could sit quietly without so much as doing finger flexes, he was lying.
    His hands were still in motion. There was no money. He’d done something to screw me and my inheritance over.
    “You stole my money.”
    “Everything is right where it should be. We have no idea if you even have the ability to act in anyone’s best interest, including your own. You will need our help. You aren’t prepared. Your dyslexia was and mostly likely still is catastrophic. And if, as you say, your father still wants revenge, you need protection. Until you are ready, until you are prepared, there is no money waiting for you.”
    The shock of what he was telling me started washing over me, in hot, acidic waves. I felt like I was going to throw up, fall over, burst into a mad rage. I clenched my hands shut instead. “I’m not going to abandon my sister.”
    In that moment, I wasn’t entirely sure I believed what I was saying. Roberto could be forgiven for thinking he’d won.
    He stabbed his finger in the air toward me.