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he’d taken earlier was still effecting him; not as much, but it was there. He came at me, and I punched him.
    I saw the blood before I saw his face, the shock in his wide eyes.
    He grabbed his nose. “You bastard!”
    I backed him into the wall, my eyes on his. “We are not our lives, Roman.”
    Roman laughed, the sound harsh. “Spoken by a blue blood. Wow, you’re a liar.”
    “What do you want?” I asked.
    Roman looked away from me. “I don’t know. Something.”
    I pushed him into the wall before letting go and backing away from him. “This isn’t the way to get something . Despite all of my blue-blooded talk about heritage, tradition, and responsibility, you are still more important than all of that. Who we are isn’t the way we live.”
    I left him standing there, staring after me as I walked from his room. I was on the stairs, my hand on the bannister before I stopped, my eyes closing. I didn’t cry. Braydens never cried.
    “He isn’t keeping anything in his room.”
    The voice startled me, and I gripped the bannister to keep from jumping.
    Marissa moved around me, her heels clicking on the hardwood floors. “I’ve searched it on several occasions,” she admitted.
    I followed her down the stairs into the foyer.
    “But you knew he was doing something?” I asked.
    She looked at me helplessly. “He’s doing a lot of things, River. I don’t have any idea where to begin with him.”
    I glanced up the stairs. “Getting him to the doctor for the broken nose I just gave him might be a good start.”
    She sighed. “Beating the mess out of him won’t help.”
    I thought about Marissa’s habit of throwing ceramics and grinned. “No, but it makes me feel better.”
    Marissa threw me a look. “I know losing your father the way we lost him is hard, but I ...” she paused, her eyes traveling the hall.
    The foyer was a large space with three oriental rugs covering gleaming wood. A portrait of Graham Brayden, one of our family’s forefathers, hung above a white fireplace. Several over-stuffed leather chairs leaned against the stairs.
    Marissa sat carefully on the edge of one of the seats, the soft pink high-lo dress she wore skimming her ankles in the back. “I don’t know how to make it better for you two.” She stared at her hands. “And the things Roman does ...” she looked at me, “Rick called from the police department and told me about the incident today. If we didn’t have friends there, Roman would already be behind bars. You know that, right? Eventually, our luck’s going to run out.”
    There wasn’t anything I could say, so I said nothing.
    Marissa stood. “Uncle Marley is in town. Janelle Houston called and told me. He’s off on one of his mad scheme adventures again, something about the Pascagoula River and a legend.” She shook her head. “Anyway, he’s going to camp there a few days, and then stay with us for the summer. Might as well expect him for supper tonight.”
    I smiled. “Old Marley,” I muttered fondly. “My childhood is full of adventures with him.”
    Marissa’s lips twitched. “Some good, some bad,” she added.
    I glanced at the stairs, and a thought struck me.
    “I’m going with him,” I said.
    Startled, Marissa looked up. “What? To the river?”
    I nodded. “I’m taking Roman with me.”
    My stepmother’s expression changed, sharpened. “I don’t know—”
    “It might help,” I interrupted.
    She waved her hands. “But summer school?”
    “To hell with it,” I growled. “He’ll either have to repeat his senior year or make up the classes when we get back. At this point, it’s the least of his concerns.”
    Marissa’s gaze moved over my face. “I’ll talk to the school. You realize he’s not going to want to go.”
    “I’ll get him there,” I swore.
    Marissa moved away from me, stopping at a table to pick up an expensive-looking pink purse she held carefully in her small hands. “I have a tea party I’m supposed to attend, a