Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) Read Free Page B

Lisa, really? If my final drama assignment of freshman year had been to write a short screenplay and the school had wanted to enter it into a ‘screenwriters of the future’ competition, I’m damn sure I'd have done the same thing had I found myself in Lisa's shoes, twenty-something years ago. But then again, I wouldn’t have found myself there. Faith never forgot to do something as important as signing a permission slip. Never .
    “One of this year's judges is on the admissions board at a performance academy in Seattle,” Ms. Jackson says, “They think Lisa has an exceptional talent for someone so young.”
    “Right.” I nod. “For screenwriting.” Why don’t I know that my niece has a gift? My failures as Lisa’s caregiver are starting to stack up. I didn’t even know she was still writing. But some strangers on the other side of the country did, and thought Lisa was talented enough to want her to attend their school.
    We’ve never even looked at high schools outside of the district, let alone schools in a different state. So, the brochure I’ve been handed and the accompanying letter that offers Lisa a place on their screenwriters of the future program, in addition to her first place prize of a scholarship, comes to me as a complete surprise.
    I’ve never heard of this college in Seattle, prepared to accept her immediately, even though she’s three years from graduating high school. If she’s prepared to put the work in to complete her high school education within the next year, though, they’ll support her all the way.
    It all seems a little too good to be true, and yet Mrs. Rodriquez is saying this is the school where dreams are made. It’s one of the country’s leading performance academies and perfect for Lisa's dreams of becoming a screenwriter.
    My failure punches me in the gut again. I didn’t even know she wanted to be a screenwriter. But as I look at her again, her eyes tell me she does. She wants this more than anything else in the world, which makes this whole thing even more heartbreaking. I’ve been there.
    I’d had my first real man-to-man conversation with Calvin , my sister’s first husband when I shared my plans to become a psychiatrist, like him. But he’d lied about the money my parents had set aside for my college education, both pre-med and medical school if that was where I wanted to go.
    It’s not that we have money troubles, son, he’d said when he made me promise not to tell Faith, it's just that there isn’t enough in the pot for you, Georgia, and Caleb to follow your father and me into the family business. One of you will have to miss out.
    In other words, if I was old enough to understand the difference between my father and theirs, then I was old enough to make a sacrifice for the futures of my niece and nephew. For the first time in my life I felt like a burden to him and my sister, like an outsider.
    I didn’t know I was adopted at the time, and when the stranger I now know as my aunt told me the truth, everything suddenly made sense. I was a burden to Faith and Calvin—financially, emotionally, and physically—and I thought they would be better off without me. It wasn’t until I’d read Faith’s letters that I had understood how in just one conversation Calvin had unraveled the very sense of belonging Faith had fought to give me. Suffered for, even, just so I could have it. And the years of being grateful for everything they had given me was just another way for Calvin to crack the bond between me and my sister.
    And when it was time, he hammered a wedge right into that crack by telling my aunt where to find me and letting her tell me I was adopted, instead of giving Faith the opportunity to explain that my birth parents had died when I was a baby, and our parents had adopted me, and when they too had died, Faith had fought Calvin to keep me where I belonged, in the family.
    He had stolen my identity from me. That single act tore away the very core of who I