She stiffened, her shoulders straightening. “It’s obvious he doesn’t.”
“No, it’s obvious that he hasn’t moved on from being angry with her. He’s spent quite a bit of time in that stage. So much time that I’m hoping he moves through the rest of the grieving process quicker.” Watching how Michael dealt with Trina had let him know he definitely was in a bad place when it came to Jessie. The question was could he move on with Ty and Lucy? Or was he only passing time with them?
A few days ago that would have been Ty’s dream scenario—that Michael would get tired of the whole threesome thing and move back to Florida to restart his life. Now he couldn’t stand the thought of it. Sometime in the last couple of days, Michael had become necessary. Which was probably why he’d jumped at the chance to help someone who knew him before he came to Bliss.
He didn’t want to intrude, but he was curious about who Michael had been before he’d holed himself up on a mountain.
“My dad said the same thing,” she said quietly. “He thinks what Michael’s doing is a kind of mourning. Not only of his relationship to my sister, but to the man he was before that night. My dad’s got a degree in psychology, so he understands guilt. He feels it every day because he didn’t see how far she could go. My mom’s just sad. She loved Mike like a son. She’s the only one who doesn’t care why Jessie did what she did. She lets herself mourn.”
“I thought Jessie needed money.” It was the motive he’d heard, but then he probably shouldn’t listen to gossip. He’d never read the police reports or asked Nate what he’d learned.
“She did. She’d gotten in some trouble. Jessie liked to gamble. She hid it from Michael, but even I knew she’d gotten in over her head a couple of times. Look, I loved my sister, but she had some entitlement problems. She thought she was underpaid and she deserved more. So when she was offered a bunch of cash by one of her bookie’s contacts, she took it. It solved both of her problems. He forgave the debt and she got seventy thousand dollars, and according to the emails I found all she was supposed to do was tip off the guy as to where Markov was.”
“That was still murder.”
“I know, but I somehow try to tell myself it’s not the same.” She leaned her head against the window. “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what she did. I still miss her. Her crimes don’t invalidate my sorrow.”
“No, they don’t. I don’t know if Michael has figured that out yet.” He made it to the end of the mountain road, the lights of Hell on Wheels marking the place where he would turn to head back into town. “Why did you really come to see him?”
She breathed an obvious sigh of relief as they made it to the highway. “For the reason I said. I need him to agree to sell the house. My dad has cancer, and even with insurance we can’t afford the payments for his treatment. Jessie paid half the down payment. She would want our dad to have the money.”
“Okay. I’ll talk to him about it.” He would tell Lucy and they would figure out how to best broach the subject.
“I don’t know that it will help. He’s not the same man. Michael…even I was half in love with him. My dad was thrilled when Jess brought him home. He was like Superman and Captain America all rolled into one. He thought Michael would be an excellent influence on her, and it seemed like he was,” she said, a wistfulness about her. “He fit in with our family. While he and Jessie were together, he was one of us. It’s funny because when I think about it, it wasn’t such a long time. They kept their relationship on the downlow because they worked together. According to all the records, Jess still lived at home with us. That was the biggest fight they had. Well, up until she tried to murder a guy she was supposed to protect.”
“I don’t think there was much of an argument. She totally drugged him so he couldn’t argue with her.” He frowned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke.”
But Trina was chuckling. “I don’t know about that. Sometimes it seems so absurd I have to laugh. Like what was she thinking? My parents and I, we find it easier to laugh now, to remember the good times. It’s probably why I hoped I would come out here and Michael would see me and he would remember that he was part of those good times.” She sniffled again. “We miss him. It’s like he died, too, because I don’t recognize the man I saw today.”