Looking at Parker was a stab to the heart. That pale, straight, blonde hair. Those gold and green hazel eyes. Her slight, fragile build. She was a perfect reflection of her mother and I grieved all over again.
We’d never stood here for Darcy. My father had buried her without ceremony, too distraught to think about what Darcy would have wanted. What the rest of us might have needed.
She lay beneath the dirt only a few feet away, as missed today as she had been the day she died. If Darcy had lived, none of this would have happened. She never would have let Prentice drive me from my home. Never would have let him set us against each other. Never—
Chapter Three
Griffen
I went still as narrow fingers closed around mine. Hope kept her eyes on the open wound in the earth holding my father’s coffin, but she held my hand in a firm grip.
She held my hand. That should have thrown me as much as the sight of my siblings.
Instead, it anchored me. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until my lungs eased and my racing heart slowed. Neither of us looked at each other, but I squeezed her fingers back, standing beside her in silence, waiting for the torture to end.
Finally, the pastor cleared his throat to get our attention. When we turned to face him, he opened the Bible in his hands and began to speak. I didn’t hear a single word. I stood there by my father’s grave, Hope’s hand in mine, just waiting for it to be over.
The pastor droned on, a pained expression on his face. Probably from the effort of finding nice things to say about the deceased. Every eye around the grave was dry as a bone. Across the way, a flash caught my eye as Sterling lifted a flask in her namesake metal and tipped it to her mouth.
She saw me watching and narrowed her eyes, her glare bleary. Classy. I wasn’t going to give her a hard time. Sterling had barely even had Darcy as a mother. She’d grown up under the loving care of our father. If she needed a drink to get herself through this circus, I wasn’t going to criticize.
The pastor closed the Bible and made to leave. Before we could flee, Harvey raised his voice. “I need to see all of you in my office. No exceptions.”
The drive back to town passed in a blur of leafless trees and bright blue winter sky. Cars filled the small lot in front of Harvey’s Victorian as we filed into his small conference room.
A long, shining table dominated the room, surrounded by leather chairs, the heavy drapes and wood paneling giving the space a cozy, intimate feel.
A cart holding a flatscreen TV and a laptop was arranged at the end of the table, Harvey waiting patiently beside it. I started to sit when Harvey pulled out the chair next to the screen. “Griffen, you sit here. Hope, take the seat beside him, please.”
Harvey’s jovial smile was nowhere in sight. Whatever was about to happen, he wasn’t looking forward to it. I glanced at the door, but it was too late to run.
Harvey rolled the screen closer to the end of the table and raised a slim remote. My father’s face filled the screen. He’d aged. Why did that surprise me? It had been fifteen years. Of course, he’d aged.
There were streaks of white at his temples. Was his hair a little thinner on top? Maybe it was a trick of the light. Those electric-blue eyes were just as vibrant. Just as cagey. Just as smug.
My stomach knotted. This was going to be bad. How bad, I couldn’t guess. I didn’t need anything from Prentice or the rest of the Sawyer family. I’d left home with nothing and created my own life. I had money in the bank. A job I loved. Friends who were like family.
Prentice Sawyer couldn’t take any of that from me.
I’d quickly learn how wrong I was.
Harvey interrupted my thoughts. “Your father preferred to deliver his final words to you himself. Prentice recorded this six weeks before his death. Changes were made to his will at that time. When he’s finished, I’ll go over the particulars.”
Harvey hit another button on the remote and my father’s laugh filled the room.
“If Harvey is playing this I must be dead. Are you all patting yourselves on the back at getting rid of me? I’m betting Ford did it, the cagey bastard.”
Another cackle of a laugh. What the fuck? What had been going on before he died?
“You’ve all been plotting against me for years. Don’t think I don’t know. And Ford was at the root of it. I knew what he was up to. Never expected the way he’d screw me over, though. He got me good. Now he’s out. As far as my estate is concerned, Ford is no longer my son.”