Buried Secrets

1. Romi

1

ROMI

Rain streaked the windows against a grey September sky as the airplane descended toward Portland. Figured. The weather matched my mood, and that mood reflected my life in general.

Miserable.

Not that I could admit it. Wasn’t I living the American dream?

The world sure seemed to think so. I had millions in the bank, a wealthy silver fox on my arm, a body made for the runway, and—as of last month—my own accessories line.

I also had an ex-boyfriend who refused to get the message, more addictions than I cared to think about, and what my therapist termed “father complex” but society called “daddy issues.”

Most of the time, I felt as if I was living in a house of cards, just one gust away from the walls collapsing on top of me.

And a storm was brewing in Oregon.

Home.

Funny I should still think of it that way when I’d spent the first eighteen years of my life counting down the hours until I could get the hell away from there. In the past eight years, I’d set foot in Baldwin’s Shore precisely twice, both times for funerals, and this visit was no different.

There were three things I wanted from this trip—firstly, to get justice for my mom, secondly, to catch up with my brother and a few old friends, and thirdly, to keep far, far away from Aaron Bartlett. Which was easier said than done when he was my brother’s best friend and his fiancée’s only sibling.

Davis reached across the armrest and squeezed my hand. “We can leave whenever you want. Just say the word.”

“Probably it would look bad if we skipped town after an hour.”

“Let’s try to stick things out overnight?”

If I could have sent flowers and a card, I would have, but this time, the deceased was my mother. I owed it to her to be there, and to my brother as well. How long did it take to arrange a funeral? A couple of days? A week? As for her death, we all knew who’d killed her.

Our father.

Davis’s personal assistant was on standby to assist with anything we needed, and she was an organisational genius. She’d already scheduled our flights, hired a car, and booked a room at the new resort that had opened on the outskirts of Baldwin’s Shore since I last visited. The Peninsula got five glowing stars in every review, thank goodness. The only other options were the Starfish Motel or my brother’s guest room, and the thought of setting foot in the Starfish filled me with horror considering the number of health citations the place had received over the years.

My brother’s guest room? Well, I’d rather stay at the motel.

The woman across the aisle glanced at me again—a look I’d seen a thousand times before. She was wondering if she recognised me, curious but too polite to ask. Hardly surprising since my face graced the cover of the magazine in her lap. On another day, a better day, I might have struck up a conversation, but today, the attention made my skin itch. The cabin crew hadn’t left me alone either. Next time, I’d listen to Davis when he suggested taking a private jet.

I’d also learn to pack lighter. Despite dressing impeccably at all times, Davis had managed to fit everything he needed into only one suitcase while I needed three, and after fifteen minutes of waiting, there was still no sign of the third on the baggage carousel. Tell me they hadn’t lost it? The whole damn world was being sent to try me this week.

“Excuse me? Are you Romina Mendez?”

I turned to find a pair of teenage girls staring up at me, nervous but hopeful. The smaller of the two looked as though she might run away if she didn’t get the answer she wanted.

“Romina would rather—” Davis started, but I put a hand on his arm.

“It’s okay.” I remembered being a teenager, star-struck when I thought I’d spotted Hugh Jackman in an airport. Except it wasn’t Hugh Jackman, it was an accountant called Steve, but I’d felt bad for stopping him, so I’d asked for a selfie anyway. He’d laughingly agreed. Probably told the story at parties now. “Sure, I’m Romina. Do you want pictures?”

Davis took their phones and obliged while they giggled and I smiled a humourless smile, one I’d practised enough times to know that it would look good on camera.

“Are you in Oregon for a photo shoot?” the taller girl asked.

“Just visiting the beach.”

A bland reply that gave no meaningful information. I used to blurt out everything, but Davis had been coaching me over the past three years, and I’d learned an important lesson: if you didn’t give people anything personal, they couldn’t use it against you. These days, I second-guessed the questions I’d be asked and prepared canned answers or sometimes lies.

“Which beach? Cannon Beach?”

“Oh, there’s my suitcase.” Thank the stars. “Great meeting you.”

I flashed one more smile as Davis hauled my case off the conveyor and stacked it onto the cart. Dread settled in my stomach. Too late to run, too late to make some pathetic excuse and fly back to New York.

I had to bury my mother, make sure my father ended up in jail where he belonged, and answer awkward questions about why I hadn’t been home for so long.

Oh, and avoid Aaron.

The arrivals hall was a sea of heaving bodies, businessmen hurrying between hugging families, backpackers carrying their worlds in oversized bags, tourists scanning the rows of guides and drivers holding up placards. I sidestepped a particularly amorous couple, and my heart jumped when I spotted my brother beside a coffee stand. When I’d called Luca with my flight details, I’d told him not to worry about picking us up, that Davis had rented a car so we wouldn’t be dependent on others, but of course Luca had insisted on meeting us anyway.

That made me happier than I’d ever admit.

Yes, I prided myself on my independence, but there were times in a girl’s life when she really needed a hug from her big brother, and this was one of those times. He was the only person in the world who truly understood how I felt right now. Which was…mixed up. Sad, angry, guilty… Our whole lives, we’d been told our mom had abandoned us when in truth, she’d been dead. Murdered.

“I’ve missed you,” I mumbled against Luca’s neck.

“It’s been too long.”

Over a year. Back then, Luca had been on a break between security contracts, and I’d flown to meet him in the Seychelles for a long weekend. Just the two of us. Davis had stayed in New York, Luca had refrained from picking up random women, and the hotel was far enough off the beaten track that the paparazzi couldn’t find me. We’d eaten too much, drunk too much, and talked about past, present, and future.

Then everything changed.

Luca had done the unthinkable and moved back to Baldwin’s Shore.

Crazy.

He hated the place.

And he hated our father, as did I.

But he loved Brooke, and Brooke lived in Baldwin’s Shore, so… Here we both were.

Brooke grinned at me, and I extricated myself from Luca’s embrace and hugged her too. A part of me hated that he’d moved back home to marry Aaron’s sister, but the bigger part of me was thrilled because secretly, I’d always hoped they’d end up together. They were perfect for each other. Aaron had done his best to derail things by making some stupid pact with Luca that they wouldn’t touch each other’s sisters—a pact that Aaron had broken first, by the way—but thankfully, Luca had seen sense and made a move. Which led to yet another problem—Brooke wanted me to be a bridesmaid at their wedding, and of course I’d had to say yes, but then Luca had asked Aaron to be best man, and now I had to come up with a plausible reason to miss the entire thing. Because no way was I going anywhere near an aisle with Aaron “Backstabber” Bartlett.

But that was an issue for another day.

“Brooke, you look great.” Radiant. “You’ve got this glow about you.”

“I’ve got your brother to thank for that.”

My mind went from zero to “holy f**k” in nought-point-five seconds. “You’re not…?”

“Not what?”

I leaned back and glanced at her stomach. “You know…”

Her jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh, no. Luca makes me happy, that’s all.”

“So, uh, that’s good. Terrific.”

And just like that, I was back to my old gawky self. There was a reason I rarely gave interviews, and that was because I was scared of putting my foot in it. An ex-boyfriend once told me I had the face of an angel, the body of a goddess, and the brain of a cabbage. We’d been in the middle of a break-up fight at the time, but his words still stung. Probably because my GPA had been nothing to write home about, but not everyone could be academically gifted, okay? And who needed to learn about algebra and Shakespeare and glaciers anyway? If the teachers had explained how to balance a chequebook or change a tyre or ace a job interview, I’d probably have paid more attention. Schools should replace chemistry with lessons on how not to date an asshole—it was a far more valuable life skill, one I’d sadly struggled to master.

And now people were staring at our little reunion.

“Maybe we should leave?” Luca suggested. “Go somewhere quieter.”

“Good idea. The hotel?”

“You don’t want to see our new place?”

“Of course I do!” Was that too much fake enthusiasm? “How about tomorrow?”

“Brooke’s cooking dinner tonight.”

“We’re both very tired,” Davis tried, protective as always.

“But you’ve gotta eat,” Brooke said. “Right? The food’s ready to go in the oven.”

And she sounded so disappointed that guilt punched me right in the chest.

“Just us?” I asked.

“Sure. Well, we invited Colt and Brie too. We figured you’d like to meet her, seeing as they’ll be your neighbours at the hotel.”

I’d actually already met her, several years ago at a fashion show in Denmark, but she probably didn’t remember me. She clearly hadn’t wanted to be there, and her small talk had been perfunctory, albeit delivered with a smile. Colt Haines was another old school friend of Luca’s, and now a colleague in the sheriff’s department too.

“So it’ll be the six of us?”

“Colt and Brie will bring Kiki. You remember Colt’s daughter? She’d have been two years old the last time you came back here.”

How could I forget? Not only was Kiki the cutest kid ever, but we’d been introduced at her mom’s funeral.

“What about Addy?” Adeline Crowe had been Brooke’s best friend since we were kids. “Is she coming?”

“She has a hot date tonight.”

“Where does she live now?”

“Coos Bay. One of the big apartment buildings in Shoreside. She said she’ll drive over tomorrow, and then we’ll have the whole gang back together.” Brooke’s smile faded. “Apart from Hannah, but everyone else.”

Hannah, Colt’s late wife, was with Mom now, both physically and spiritually. We’d buried her in the same cemetery six years ago.

“What about Aaron?”

Was it too much to hope he’d gone on vacation?

Of course it was. Aaron was a workaholic. If he wasn’t lawyering, he was busy fixing up his apartment, so Luca told me, and I had to concede he was good with his hands. Good in every possible way. Dammit, why had I been so stupid?

“Oh, sure, he’ll be there tonight. I’m planning to borrow his kitchen since it’s bigger than ours, plus his dining table seats twelve.”

They all lived in the same building. Not even a big apartment building with dozens of units, but a converted car dealership, just the three of them. Aaron had the entire first floor, and Luca shared the second with Brooke.

Luca’s expression morphed into worry. “Romi? You okay?”

And so it began… Smile.

“Not really. I mean, Mom…”

“Hey, are you Romina Mendez?”

I turned to see a teenager with a smartphone at the ready. Couldn’t I get two damn minutes to myself?

“Please, not now.”

The girl backed away, and as she hurried off, I heard her friend say, “Told you she was a bitch.”

Great.

Details of that little interaction would undoubtedly be on social media within five minutes, further cementing my reputation for being difficult. Why was it always the bad stuff that made the news?