She Killed Me at Christmas. I Came Back. Chapter 05

She Killed Me at Christmas. I Came Back. Chapter 05

Grant made a sound I’d never heard from him before-something between a wheeze and a sob.

Then he detonated.

“BRYNN!” He shoved her away from his chest so hard she stumbled into the counter. “First Sloane tells you no peanuts, and you grind them into powder and nearly stop my heart! Now we BOTH tell you not to touch thay bag, and you burn FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?!”

His chest heaved. “Are you actually that stupid, or are you doing this on purpose? I’ve protected you since you were six years old, and THIS is what I get?!”

Oh, how I’d waited two lifetimes to watch this show.

Brynn sobbed harder, mascara running. “I didn’t know! Grant, I swear, if I’d known it was YOUR money I never would’ve touched it! It’s Sloane’s fault-she made it sound like it was nothing important-”

“I said it was more important than anything in this house,” I said flatly. “Grant called it my whole world. Did you mishear him too? You ‘mishear’ an awful lot, Brynn, and only ever in ways that destroy my things.” I crossed my arms. “Except this time it wasn’t mine. Inconvenient.”

The kitchen door banged open. Patty pushed in, scowling at me before she’d heard a word-pure reflex.

“Sloane, can’t you behave for one single holiday? All this shrieking with the family in the-”

“Mom.” Grant’s voice came out strangled. “Brynn burned the duffel. The money’s gone. All of it.”

I watched Patty’s face cycle through confusion, denial, comprehension-and then she moved faster than I’d

ever seen her move, and the second slap of the morning cracked across Brynn’s other cheek.

“You little VIPER!” Patty screamed. “Four hundred thousand dollars! You couldn’t throw YOURSELF in the

stove instead?! Twenty years we fed you, clothed you, treated you like our own, and you burn my son’s future to

ASH?!”

“Miss Patty, please-” Brynn wailed.

“Get out of my house!”

“If I go home, my mama will marry me off to whoever pays the most! My life will be OVER!”

“Your life?” Patty grabbed a wooden spoon off the counter and hurled it at her. “What about MY SON’S life?!”

Grant pressed both palms against his skull. “Mom, STOP. Screaming doesn’t fix it. There are eighteen people in that living room waiting for me to walk out with four hundred grand. If I come out empty-handed, I’m a joke
in this county for the rest of my life. Dale will tell this story at every funeral and wedding until we’re all dead

“Then tell them the truth! It burned!”

“They’ll never believe that, Mom! ‘The money burned’? It sounds exactly like what a broke liar would say!”

And then-I watched It happen-Brynn’s tear-flooded eyes slid sideways and landed on me. On my wrist. On

the watch.

She grabbed my hand with both of hers.

“Sloane. Sloane, Grant told me your family has money. Real money. You could cover four hundred thousand, right? You could just-”

Grant’s head snapped up. He looked at me like a drowning man spotting a yacht.

“Babe, Babe, yes. You could lend it to me-just through the holidays, I’ll pay you back, I swear. You don’t want me humiliated in front of my whole family, right? You’re going to be my wife.”

I stared at the two of them-the arsonist and the beggar, working in perfect harmony-and laughed in their

faces.

“You think I travel with four hundred thousand in cash? Should I wave my banking app at your relatives? Why not just show them a Monopoly box?”

Brynn’s eyes narrowed, darting over me like a pickpocket’s. “Your watch,” she breathed. “That’s a Patek, isn’t it? And the Cartier bracelets you switch out every day, the diamond studs, the engagement ring…” Her voice climbed, bright with inspiration. “All together that’s WAY more than four hundred thousand! Grant could show them the jewelry-say he converted the cash into assets for his parents!”

Grant’s whole face lit up like the burned-down Christmas tree.

“Brynnie, you’re a genius!”

And then-I genuinely could not believe my eyes-he pulled the woman who had just incinerated his life savings into his arms and hugged her.

“You saved me. You really saved me.”

Over his shoulder, Brynn looked straight at me.

And smiled.