My thoughts are a buzz in my head. Their family life is more complicated than I first realized. What would it be like to lose a sibling, a twin at that? And at such a young age? Finley would have been fairly young too. If Jacob was fifteen, she would have been, what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two at most? Just starting adulthood, and then to be delivered such a blow.
It's clear she’s doing everything she can to take care of this place for her family. For Jacob. Perhaps part of the reason they’re so attached to the land is because it’s where Aria lived and died. I have no doubts that Finley would do anything for her family. She’s not the type of person to run or avoid, no matter how hard things get.
Jacob doesn’t realize how lucky he is.
After the dishes are done and drying in the rack, I wipe off the counters and the dining table. The house is quiet. It’s still fairly early, but I don’t want to stay downstairs alone.
I head up to my room and try to call Nora. She doesn’t answer. I pull out my laptop, but the Wi-Fi isn’t the greatest, and it takes fifteen minutes for my email box to load three messages. I grab a book from the shelf in the bedroom I’m in, but it’s an old V.C. Andrews novel, and I’m creeped out by page three.
I’ll go downstairs to get some water or something. That will kill a few minutes.
In the long hallway, I pause by the wall of photos, perusing them with fresh eyes.
My gaze snags on a picture of Finley posing on an ice rink in a sparkly leotard. She looks to be fourteen or thereabouts, her hair braided like a crown around her head, a wide smile stretching her lips.
Taylor’s familiar face pops out at me. I stop on one photo where she’s laughing and hugging one of their sisters in front of a school—maybe a middle school based on their youthful smiling faces. The other sister is younger and could be a female version of Jacob.
Aria.
Is it her?
I scan the photos, searching for more of the little sister.
There. One of her and Jacob dressed up as Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. They can’t be more than ten years old, holding up their wands to the camera.
I scrub a hand through my hair. No wonder Jacob is messed up.
A door creaks open, and Finley steps into the hallway, blinking at the overhead light.
“Hi. Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“No. I was just reading.” She pads over to me, wearing only an oversized T-shirt, giving me more than a decent glimpse of her slender legs.
My whole body tightens, including certain parts of my anatomy that still have fond memories of what it’s like to be pressed tight against the heat between her legs.
Is she trying to kill me?
“Didn’t you already see all of this the other night?”
“I didn’t get a good look. There are so many of them.”
I point out a picture of all five sisters lined up together, arms around each other, some smiling, some making faces.
“This is you.” I tap on Finley, standing on the far end. “And Taylor.” Taylor is second from the end on the other side. The youngest sister, who must be Aria, is standing next to her and giving her bunny ears.
“Who’s this one?” I point out the dark-haired teen next to Finley, who looks to be of an age with Finley in the photo.
“Mindy. She’s a year younger than me. Then Piper.”
“The artist?”
She nods.
Piper is smack dab in the middle.
“Then Taylor, then Aria.”
I review more photos, one of Piper standing in front of a giant metal sculpture of a man on a bicycle.