“This is where you get off, Mom,” he said, his voice eerily calm. “The house and business are mine now.”
“What?” Melissa at least had the decency to look confused. “Brandon, what are you doing?”
“What we discussed,” he snapped. “Mom’s not going to make this easy. She’ll contest the will, make scenes, embarrass us with the developer. This is cleaner. She has her medication, some clothes. There’s a gas station about five miles up. She can call one of her quilting friends.”
He reached across me to open my door.
“Get out, Mom.”
I looked at my son, searching for any sign of the child I’d loved, and found nothing. Then I turned to my daughter, whose wide eyes darted between us, her mouth opening and closing like a fish.
“Melissa?” I asked, but I already knew. She’d go along with him. She always had.
