Free Return (Coming Home #1) by Meli Raine Page B

cry in front of someone else, for once.
    Itfeels good to be able to.
    My dad was found stabbed in prison, right through the heart, his hand on the knife. The authorities ruled it a suicide. His death happened a few days before he was being called to give yet another deposition about the Yates drug trafficking.
    Timing is everything.
    The photos the medical examiner showed me when I insisted are burned in my brain. The sight of dad on aslab, in the morgue, is my last view of him.
    He’s with me now, though. I unpacked his urn last night, after Mark left.
    Dad is next to the little aloe vera plant Elaine left next to my sink. A silly place, but where do you put your dad’s ashes?
    I don’t think there real l y is a ‘good’ place.
    Amy reaches in to the freezer and pulls out my pint of cherry cordial ice cream. “Frozen therapy,” shesays.
    I try to laugh, but it comes out like a choking snot bubble. Then I really do laugh.
    “God, I’ve missed you,” I confess. Our eyes meet and she isn’t sleek, corporate Amy. She’s just my old friend.
    My now friend.
    “You are so strong, Carrie,” she says, digging in to her own pin t , fishing out a chunk of cookie.
    “I’ll trade some of my strength for cash,” I reply.
    She snorts. “You’d havea lot of cash.” Through a mouthful of ice cream she asks, “You seriously going to be okay? I don’t like the idea of you trying to take on the dean.”
    By the time I answer, the silence is so thick it feels like a cloud between us. I pierce it. “The dean put himself in this position. He could have fired me before I started.”
    Her eyes pop open suddenly, like an owl’s. “Oh, my God, why didn’t he?Maybe he’s not guilty.” Her eyes plead with me to consider the idea. “Maybe your dad was wrong, and Landau isn’t part of all this.”  
    I make a skeptical sound. “Claudia confronted me because she was pissed she didn’t get the job,” I explain. “ Something’s really not adding up there.”
    “Why would she want it?”
    I shrug, then take a small taste of my ice cream. My appetite comes back. Yum.
    “Andwhy would they give it to you instead of her?”
    I give her a bitch, please look, complete with one upturned eyebrow. “Because I am awesomesauce and she’s a skanky ho!”
    That gets us into a giggle fit. The seriousness is fading. Good. Spilling my guts helps, but only in limited quantities. If I talk about my dad too much in one long conversation, I’ll be useless for days. Depression comes in giantwaves with no relief in sight. I can’t be useless now, hiding in my room in dar kn ess and calling off work, like I did sometimes in OKC .
    I just can’t.
    Amy flips my laptop up and finds Netflix. It’s one of the few expenses I justify. Eight bucks a month for all that entertainment is worth it. Sons of Anarchy ’s opening scene appears, and we let the past go back to rest.
    The future remains to beseen.
    Five hours later we’ve binged. Binge-watched episodes, binged on pizza, binged on ice cream. I am binged out.
    As she clicks out of Netflix, my homepage appears on the laptop. It’s set to a major news channel, and there’s a huge picture of a woman who looks just enough like Amy to make her hand pause.
    “Fourth woman disappears in souther n California,” the headline screams. I read it aloud.We both stare at the screen in silence after. O ur eyes rake over the screen, reading.
    “Twenty-two,” she finally says. Amy absent-mindedly reaches up and touches her hair. “Maybe I should dye it a different color.”
    I frown. “Just be safe. Four women? And they all have black hair, brown eyes, and similar features? It’s creepy, Amy.”
    “I know.” Her voice is small and soft. Sing-songy, like shecan’t deal with this. “And they’re all our age.”
    “Some of the newscasters are saying the police think it’s a serial killer.” I hate even saying those words.
    She blows out a long sigh, like she’s been holding her breath.