“She’s been a good wife to him,” Price grumbled. “Treated him well. Loved him. All the while, he’s had one foot out the door because of some supposed ex-girlfriend who fucking loved him. I’m sorry, but I don’t feel bad about his situation at all right now.”
Cannel placed her hand on Price’s arm. “Trinket, it’s okay.”
“It’s not okay,” Price grunted. “I had to help her move out. Normally, I would’ve had a resounding ‘hell no’ ready for her. But seeing her that day? She was a freakin’ mess. She loves him, and it’s more than obvious after listening to the way Bram’s been treating her that she needed to go. At least it looks like it shook him up some. Mimi was always toxic, and now look what she’s done.”
I felt like I was living in an alternate universe.
But before I could get anything more out of either one of them, the restaurant door loomed.
When I opened it, it was to find our entire party standing in the foyer by the hostess stand waiting to be seated.
“We were a bit wild.” Price chuckled from beside me. “There was this one time that Shine dared me to jump off the old bridge leaving town. We were in our early teens. Shine said that I was too scared to do it, then did it himself. I couldn’t let him beat me, so I jumped. Only, Shine must’ve been lucky and landed in the only deep spot in that particular area of the river. I, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky. I landed really fuckin’ hard and shattered all three bones in one leg. I had to have emergency surgery. And now I have a metal rod and a limp when I’m super tired.”
Iris, who was now two margaritas down, sniffed. “I know you think that you’re special but… you’re not. All siblings are crazy. But mine takes the cake.”
“Your sister?” I wondered.
“Yep,” Iris confirmed. “I know you’ve heard a little bit due to what I’ve told you, but back when we were little, Abby was on psych meds. She used to hear things that weren’t there. For instance, one night, she thought she heard me calling her name. I wasn’t. When I woke up, she was standing over me with a baseball bat. Right when I was looking at her, asking her what was wrong, she took a swing at my head.” Iris shook her head. “The one thing that saved me was the nightstand. I’d curled to where my head was pressed against it. That, and Abby’s screaming. My parents came in, and my dad took the bat away. Then she was taken to a psych hospital where she was evaluated for a few weeks and diagnosed with schizophrenia. From that point forward,” she dunked her chip into the salsa, brought it to her mouth and said before shoving the whole thing inside, “she only tried to kill me three other times. All when she went off her meds.”
There was a long, stunned silence and then, “Are you telling me that your sister has tried to actively kill you four times, and you’re just now sharing that with me?”
Iris blinked. “Only me, though. Not anyone else.”
“And that makes it better?” I asked, suddenly really upset. “Because, from where I’m at, the girl I fuckin’ love just told me that her sister, who is a suspect in the murder case of her ex-boyfriend, has tried to kill her multiple times… do the police know that your sister is a nutcase?”
Iris winced, but her eyes had softened. “You love me?”
I’d said that?
I had.
Son of a bitch.
“I…” I started, but it was Haggard who said, “He wouldn’t let you in his house if he didn’t love you. After the number Lindy did on him, he hasn’t spoken to a single person of the opposite sex without fully vetting them through either one of us or someone he knows. You, he just allowed right into his life without a single thought.”
Iris’s shoulders drooped. “I’m sure they know—the cops. They visited with my parents, and that’s something that they share with everyone when it comes to Abby.” She sighed. “At first, it was something they tried to keep secret. But it wasn’t something that could stay that way when she would scream out in class at her voices. She doesn’t do it at all anymore because her symptoms are treated with medication. She’s actually quite regulated with her medication. I haven’t seen her slipup in years.”
“That sounds suspicious,” Sophia dunked her chip so far into the queso in front of her that her fingers came back out covered in cheese. “I mean… meds are hard to take. Ask me. I’ve been taking birth control for years. Then I started taking a multivitamin and this fish oil crap. And my life doesn’t depend on it or anything, but I can tell you that I miss my ‘meds’ at least once a week. If I’m lucky.”