House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (32 page)

Despite that fact,
Holston had left everything to Delaney - the company, the properties, the
money. She was notified through a visit from a lawyer dressed in a gray suit
and gray tie, the large binder filling her empty hands after she answered the door
to Mark’s house. Delaney had cried the entire night over a bottle of whiskey
with Mark and James. It took her a week to decide what to do. Apparently, seven
days was a good amount of time for unrestricted mourning and pouting until the
Jones’s pulled their heads out of their asses.

Delaney handed the
company over to Mark and gave James permission to carry out all the legal
proceedings in conjunction with Holston’s pre-appointed attorney staff. It
turns out that the company had remained relatively unscathed of Holston’s
corruption. Holston had run a double life, the paths not crossing except for
his pursuit of predecessors. The hiring and firing of young executives had been
a pattern Holston had been maintaining for the last decade in hopes of finding
a man who would run the company in his footsteps; both businessman and
vigilante. He had been striking out, which wasn’t much of a surprise.

The police department
weeded through evidence found on the Hinske property, trying to piece together
all the possible bodies that had been terminated in the crematory. Sanchez had
decided to pull some of the crews - the FBI taking the lead - after the death
count reached up to ten. The latest count had reached fifty-five dating back as
far as forty years. They had found small silver jars planted throughout the
fifty acres, thanks to Ken Hinske, who was now locked up in a loony bin
somewhere in the state.

It was James who’d
discovered, while going through paperwork, the headstones that Holston had
erected for Seth and Owen at St. Luke’s Cemetery. As a family, they had all
agreed to have the headstones taken down and destroyed without seeing them.
Holston hadn’t earned the right to mourn their losses. Instead, they visited the
graves that Ann and Michael had kept secret for all those years, taking the
trip by themselves annually. All five members of the Jones family had cried
that day.

Florence was sentenced
to county jail for a few years. The judge had gone easy on her; her public
defender claiming Holston Parker had blackmailed and brainwashed her. Before
she had been sentenced, Mark and Ben had visited her on Delaney’s request.
Florence explained the whole story to them, both Mark and Ben had stayed
resolute as she’d spoken. According to Ben, he had been a little more
sympathetic than Mark. In the end, they both agreed to keep their distance, at
least until she was released from prison. Delaney doubted that Mark would ever
see her again and Ben, well, there was a small chance. Ben always had a bigger
heart and stronger willingness to forgive than Mark. Or maybe it was Megan’s
influence. Delaney wasn’t sure.

Delaney rolled her
mother’s wedding ring around her left forefinger, feeling the warmness of the
metal against her skin. She had only been wearing it for a few hours, yet it
felt familiar to her. It felt like home. She looked up to see James weaving in
and out of the twenty person crowd of family and friends, following Robert’s
gyrations. The crowd wasn’t nearly as smooth or coordinated as Robert, but he
had two up on them - gay
and
Latino. James’s eyes locked onto hers as he
flashed a wide grin.

There was nothing
better than a deliriously happy James. His sky blue tie was loose around his
neck, his white shirt pulled out from his khaki pants. Delaney returned the
smile as he gave his iconic half wave. The memories of his fourteen-year-old
face came crashing into her, the day James walked into her life. She never
wanted him to walk back out, and she would make sure he never did.
I am
lucky.

“Did I ever tell you
how beautiful you are?” James asked as he lifted Delaney’s feet up and sat
underneath them, setting her feet on his lap.

“I’ve never heard you
tell me that,” Delaney quipped with a smile.

“Well, first off,
your eyes,” James said as he ran his hand around her white sandal. “Incredibly
endless. And your smile. You make me want to smile every time I see those
voluptuous, peach lips curl up. And your head, your mind. That’s where you
stole my heart, Dr. Jones.” James pointed his index finger to his head before
he dropped it down, reaching into the back of his pants. He pulled out a
silvery-gray envelope.

“Quitting the
compliments so soon? I thought there would be more.” Delaney laughed as she
reached out her hand to accept the envelope. “What’s this?”

“I’m not quite sure,
but I think you can take a guess if you turn it around. It came in the mail the
other day in a larger envelope that requested it not be opened until tonight.
No return address, though it looks like it came from somewhere in Europe.
France maybe,” James replied.

Delaney ran her
finger along the edge and flipped it around to see an embossed red V on the
back.

“I’ll come back in a
few minutes,” James said as Delaney felt her legs lift up again. She looked up
to see James’s head disappearing back into the crowd while the Latino music
continued pumping through the air.

Delaney slid her
finger underneath the flap, the paper lifting from its seal with a faint rip.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it to see the writing
scratched evenly on the page. Her eyes scanned down to see the signature “Anna”
sprawled near the bottom. Delaney’s heart throbbed as she moved back up to the
beginning, reading each word slowly.

Delaney,

I’ll make this
short, seeing as that’s how I prefer things anyway. I’m sure you look beautiful
today, like you always do.
(I can be jealous now, seeing as we are
sisters
.) You and James are
perfect for each other.

Thank you for
trusting me. I hope you can understand why I left and I hope the rest of the
family feels the same way. I do better on my own, you know that. I’m doing fine
with Ryan, somewhere in “China.” Know that he wasn’t your father just like he
wasn’t mine. We’ll never be who he was.

Love,

Anna
“V” Jones

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR

House of Fire
is Raen Smith’s second novel in the Unraveled Series. When she isn’t writing novels, she spends her time wrangling two small sons and teaching at a technical college. She lives in Sherwood, Wisconsin with her husband and boys.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A special thank you to my husband, Brandon, for pushing me time and time again. Yes, I will just shut up and write.
And to Cole and Holden, thank you for your curiosity and constant challenging. You make me view the world differently, and for that, I am forever grateful.
Thank you to my editors, Alizon and Kris of C&D Editing, for providing sound advice and to Mike Olson for providing information on firearms. Any mistakes are my own.
Last, thank you to my friends and family who have encouraged me to continue to dream. The journey has just begun.