Kay thought she could do it. After all, it wasn't like they were really burying Kyle. Not when they didn't have a body. And Billy's memorial had been more like a joke. This had to be the same, right?
But when she entered the chapel with Angie by her side, everything fell apart.
Sam had mostly taken care of it, and tried to keep it as small as possible. They didn't want the information in the press for obvious reasons. So only people closest to them were there. But that didn't mean she wasn't shocked when she realized that also meant Kyle's squad from work.
Eric stood the moment she entered the room, his lip trembling with some foreign emotion.
"Kay," he whispered, seeming on the verge of tears.
"Sit down, Matthews," one of the other boys hissed and pulled him back on the pew.
Kay gave them a nod, but moved forward, keeping her eyes on the floor. Of course they were there. They worked with Kyle directly. They'd notice him gone. But it still broke it, still made it much too real.
And her traitorous eyes couldn't help rising, searching the room for who else was there. Corey Flynn from the Agency with Steve Turner. Yes, they were friends.
A knot lodged itself in her throat.
William and Deea, his girlfriend. Of course he'd be there.
Her knees began shaking.
Max. Max was there, without Rosario and his son, but with Sophie. Oh, God.
Like in a nightmare, she could remember her first stay at Tanner Ranch, how Max had told her about the danger Kyle was in, how she'd realized just how afraid he was of losing his nephew. And now it had happened. Max's worst nightmare had come true and Kay couldn't even look at him because she couldn't take his pain as well. Couldn't take Sophie's. Hers was already smothering her.
She could do this. And even if she couldn't, she had to.
So she lifted her chin and walked forward. It was a mistake. At the front of the room, there were white roses and a picture of Kyle she knew too well, because she'd taken it. A picture in which he looked happy and confident, ready to take on the world. But it was not the picture that ruined her, but what lay behind it.
Kay froze in the middle of the aisle and reached back blindly for Angie.
"Kay, what's wrong?" she asked immediately.
A million things were wrong, but Angie's question asked for the specifics.
"Why is there a coffin?" Kay breathed. Her vision tunneled as she stared at that big dark-brown wooden box. "We don't have a body, why is there a coffin?"
A coffin made it real. Even if it was closed and empty, it didn't feel that way. She couldn't breathe.
"Sam said something about Maxi insisting that there be one."
The words were like a lightning strike. Maxi Grant.
The name rattled inside Kay's head and she forced herself to focus. There she was, at the front, right next to Kyle's picture, wearing a black dress, tears on her face, talking to the priest. She brought a priest.
"Kay..." Angie's voice was soothing, wary, as if she could sense that it was the last straw.
Maxi fucking Grant.
"Why is there a coffin?" Her voice rang around the chapel.
In the back of her mind, she knew that everyone was staring at her, but her focus was on the blonde woman in front of her. She turned, her gaze wide with surprise, her eyes red with tears.
YOU ARE READING
Curtain Call (The Jewel Project #7)
Adventure"This is it. The curtain call. Where we go from here is entirely your choice. Funny how we're right back where we started." It has been four years since Sam and his brothers blackmailed the Agency into keeping them on board for the Jewel Project. Fo...
