Broken Pieces Read Free Page A

silver cross that hung just above the bed.
    Why had her father left her everything? Had it been a desperate act of contrition from a dying man?Or had he simply wanted to pull her back here one more time, back to the place of her misery? If she was to guess, it was the latter. Jed would have considered it one last act of domination to know that even in death he’d had the power to bring her back here.
    It took them a little over an hour to get the bedrooms ready for occupancy and carry up their things. While Kelsey was setting up her computer, Mariah wandered back downstairs.
    She peeked into the kitchen and stifled a groan. The old linoleum on the floor was stained and curling up at the edges. The countertops looked as if they hadn’t seen a soapy sponge in decades. She refused to look in the refrigerator, afraid of what horrors might await her there.
    Tomorrow, she told herself. She’d face this mess tomorrow. From the kitchen she went into what had once been a dining room but for as long as she remembered had been her father’s study.
    This had been her father’s kingdom, the big black leather chair behind the old wooden desk his throne. And it had been in this room where he’d mete out his punishments.
    She moved around the desk and took a seat in the large overstuffed chair where her father had so often sat. She ran her hands across the top of the desk, her mind flitting back in time, seeking one single moment when she’d felt loved, felt wanted, by her parents.
    Her mind remained blank. Sighing, she pulled open the first desk drawer and stared at the bundle of letters that lay inside. She picked up the bundleand stared at the return address written in her own hand.
    Over the years she’d written to her mother to let her know what was going on in her life. She’d written about Kelsey’s birth and about getting her teaching degree. She’d chronicled each of Kelsey’s special moments of childhood, thinking her mother would want to know about the grandchild she’d never met.
    The letters had been her attempt to maintain contact with the only two people in the world who
should
have loved her. And the letters had never been opened.
    A small bitter laugh escaped her lips as she shoved them back into the drawer. This would be the first place where she’d start the changes to the house. She’d have the furniture hauled away, repaint the walls, then buy a dining room set so the house would show nicely when it was placed on the market.
    She’d give herself a month to take care of things. Then she and Kelsey would get the hell out of here and go back to the life they’d built in Chicago.

Chapter 2
    “M om, are you going to feed me or what?” Kelsey called from the living room.
    Mariah stirred from her dark thoughts and glanced at her watch. It was after five and lunch had been a hamburger on the road a long time ago. “I’m going to feed you,” she said as she left the dining room. “We’ll see what the Red Dragon has to offer a couple of weary, travel-worn women.”
    Exhaustion weighed heavily on Mariah as they got back into the car to head to the restaurant on Main Street. The long drive that day, coupled with the emotional baggage of coming home, had taken its toll.
    She just wanted to eat a meal, then tumble into bed for a long night’s sleep. Anything else could wait until the morning.
    The tension that had tightened her shoulders slowly dissipated as they drove into town. At least here lay some of Mariah’s best memories. School had been nirvana, a break from the house and her parents. And on the rare times she’d been allowed to come into town after school or on the weekends,she’d reveled in the sense of freedom and the joy of meeting up with friends.
    Kelsey sat up straighter in her seat as they passed a coffee shop where half a dozen young people were standing out front. “Maybe it won’t be such an awful summer,” she said.
    “You won’t have any problem making friends. You never do,”