A younger woman walked beside Angela, their arms linked. Her gaze met mine, and my breath stopped.
The woman was so much Jayela. Everything from her skin coloring to her eyes to her height and the shape of her body. It was like watching a younger version of my sister walk past me.
I’d been warned by my father’s hired help that I had a half sister who looked more like Jayela than I ever would. And yet the surprise of seeing her in the flesh still hit me like a cold shower.
Liam followed my gaze. “Wow. That’s uncanny.”
Rowe and I both nodded. They waited on my cue, and eventually, when almost everybody had filed out of the church, I pushed to my feet. My men flanked me, escorting me out.
“You okay?” Rowe asked softly.
I didn’t know how to answer that. “I honestly don’t know.”
We stepped outside into the brightness of another beautiful summer day and walked slowly down the steps. It was all too much. Seeing my half sister, who looked so much like the one I’d had to bury. And the tiny of part of me that mourned. Even though I’d hated my father, I had never thought I’d be attending his funeral so soon. “Let’s just go.” I moved toward the car, completely and utterly overwhelmed by the morning.
“You sure?” Rowe stared down at me with his big dark eyes that seared my soul. “We’ll be right here with you if you want to stay.”
“And we’ll also be right behind you if you want to leave,” Liam tacked on.
“I just want to get out of here. I can’t do this today.”
Liam took his keys from his pocket. “You got it. One getaway driver coming right up.” He paused, his lips curving up slightly. “I’ve had practice and everything. I’m practically a pro by now, huh?”
The three of us weaved through the crowd, slipping between groups of people chatting quietly, and the good-looking young priest deep in conversation with Angela. She didn’t notice me leaving, which was a relief. I didn’t want her trying to pull me back in and introducing me around.
“Mae?”
I stopped.
The woman really was so much like Jayela it hurt my heart.
“Are you leaving?”
All I could do was nod. I didn’t trust myself to speak.
The woman glanced over to where her mother was, surrounded by people. “I get it. Funerals suck.”
“We buried my sister here,” I confessed to her without thinking. “And you…”
“Oh.” She stared down at her hands. “Yeah, I realize I look like her. I could never really see it, but Jayela said she looked very similar at my age.”
My heart thumped. “You met her?”
“Just a couple of times.”
There was so much Jayela had never told me. I knew she was probably just trying to protect me. She always was the big sister who would have burned down the world if it tried to hurt me. But keeping something this big from me…just like with her pregnancy…it all just made me think she’d thought me too weak to stand on my own two feet. I hadn’t needed her taping me in bubble wrap.
I just needed her by my side.
The young woman cleared her throat. “I’m Annabelle by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Annabelle.”
“I know the others are curious about you. I have three brothers…I mean, we do.”
I swallowed hard. “I’ve never had a brother.”
“I never really got to have a sister. I’d like one, though.”
I could feel Angela’s gaze on us, and a rush of guilt swamped me. These people lived in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Saint View. At one point, I’d considered them suspects in Jayela’s murder. And yet here they were, asking me to be a part of their family, at least in some small way.
“I’d like that, too. We could exchange numbers. If you’d like?”
Annabelle took out her phone, and I saved her contact details in mine. She tucked hers back in her purse, her expression happier than it had been when she’d first approached. But then her smile slipped. “I’m sorry about Jayela. I wish I’d gotten to know her better. I saw her, the night she died, and if I’d known what was going to happen, I would have said so many things…different things.”
“You saw Jayela the night she died?” Liam asked.
Annabelle nodded. “Outside the Watersmith Hotel. I was with some friends, so I didn’t stop to talk long when we spotted each other. I wish now I had.”
Liam untangled his hand from the bone-bruising grip I had on it. I had to shake my fingers out, releasing the pressure of clamping down on him so hard. As far as we’d been aware, on the night of Jayela’s death, she’d left me at the bar, dropped Tori home, and then gone to work, before returning to our apartment late.
Nowhere had we known about her stopping in at a hotel on the night she’d died. I stared up at Liam. “There was no record of a hotel on her credit card, was there?”
He shook his head. “Not that night. There were a handful of other credit card charges made at hotels, which is why we’d thought she was having an affair with Will.”
“Will, as in William?” Annabelle asked.
I nodded dumbly.
“So…she wasn’t gay?”
I blinked. “Jayela? No.”
“Oh, sorry. I just assumed. That night I saw her, she was with a woman.”
I stared at her. “Short? Long brown hair— Wait.” I scrolled through my phone and found a photo of Tori. “Is this her?”
Annabelle leaned and peered at it. She nodded slowly. “It was a while ago, and it was dark, but yes, pretty sure that’s her.”
“What made you think they were together?” Liam asked. “Romantically, I mean.”
Annabelle shook her head slowly. “Just a vibe. Well, a vibe and the fact they were going into a hotel in the same area she lived in. That’s not exactly common unless you’re booty calling.”
Will’s insane accusations rang around my head, louder and more potent with this new information. There was no way Tori could have killed Jayela. How? She was tiny, and Jayela was strong and well-trained. She couldn’t have gotten the upper hand in an argument or fight. Not to mention the fact that Tori was deeply religious and completely in love with her husband. The idea of her cheating, and with a woman?