Ink and Ashes Read Online Free Page A

then their footsteps began to climb the stairs. My thoughts whirled all over the place, contemplating the places where Mom wouldn’t think to look.
    Forrest opened a copy of Taming of the Shrew. “How about in here?”
    And then it occurred to me: All we needed was a copy of the letter. As far as she knew, we didn’t have anything else. “Duh.” I laid the letter on the desk next to Forrest and snapped a picture with my phone. I yanked the note off my desk, folded it, and threw the paper like a live grenade at the floor in front of Avery. He whipped his hands behind his back.
    Mom crossed through the doorframe. The paper fluttered to the floor like an autumn leaf.

AVERY GLANCED UP at Mom, lunged for the paper, stuffed it in his mouth, and started to chew.
    My heart skipped around my chest. What was Avery thinking? Next to me, Forrest’s jaw fell. Parker leaned against the doorframe for support, his face strained from trying to hold in laughter.
    Mom stalked over until she towered in front of Avery. “Spit.” It was only one word, but her voice crackled and sizzled in the air.
    Avery pushed himself up on his elbows. “Spit what?” Drool spilled from the corner of his mouth. He wiped at it with his sleeve.
    She placed her hands on her hips. “The letter.”
    He swallowed with a loud gulp. “What letter?”
    Mom drew in a deep breath and held it for what seemed an eternity before exhaling. She turned around to burn a scowl into me, then Avery, and finally Parker. “We’ll talk about the consequences when your dad gets home.” Her voice trembled with irritation.
    We all nodded, trying to look properly chastised.
    On her way out, she bumped into Parker in the doorframe. I couldn’t tell if the nudge was on purpose, but she was mad enough that Avery didn’t take the opportunity to make a joke about it.
    I let out the breath I’d been holding.
    “Oh man, that was too close,” Forrest said, relaxing his broad shoulders.
    Avery rolled over and sat up straight. “You. Are. Such. A. Loser,” he said to me in a low gravelly voice. “That was nasty.”
    “No one said you had to eat it,” I said.
    “That’s how you get rid of evidence. Don’t you learn anything from watching all those detective movies?” He whipped his long hair behind him. “Most people would have just said thank you.”
    I ignored Avery and made Forrest get off the desk so I could work at my laptop comfortably. Once the computer came to life, I downloaded the letter and the pictures. “Let’s take a look at the pictures first.”
    Parker and Forrest positioned themselves, one on each side. Once they were in place, Avery finally lifted himself from the floor and joined them at my back.
    I pulled up the images in extra-large thumbnails on my desktop so everyone could see. I pointed to the first picture. “I think this was the first day of the funeral. The incense made me really sick, and I almost threw up.”
    “Oooh.” Avery shuddered. He pointed to a picture on the bottom row. “This one’s creepy. Someone actually took a picture of him in the coffin. Probably the first day of the service, before they cremated him.”
    My mind went to other memories of him before he died. I remembered the University of Hawaii sweatshirt he liked to wear and how his mouthwash smelled like black licorice.
    A new anguish settled inside me. I tried to shake it off and gestured to the picture in the bottom corner. “I can’t believe how young we look.”
    Three pictures in the second row had us surrounded by other Japanese people. “I have no idea who these people are,” I said.
    Forrest’s face twisted into a sour expression. “Hey, there’s one of your dad. Not your dead one. Your dad now.”
    “Maybe it just looks like him,” Parker said, squinting at the image.
    “It can’t be.” I opened the picture in a viewer so we could see it in more detail. “Mom just said we didn’t meet Dad until after the funeral, so there’s no way he could