“But you didn’t want this with Eli?” I ask.
“I didn’t feel that with Eli. There has to be more. I can’t believe what I feel when I’m with him is desire—passion is love.” She almost weeps with the need to be told she’s right.
“He didn’t fulfill your needs,” I growl, my dick fully awake in my slacks.
“I don’t think so.” She looks confused, perplexed.
“Did you come when you were with him?” I ask.
“Colt,” Cash warns, getting up and tugging me into the kitchen. I reluctantly allow him to do so.
“What kind of fucking question is that?” he groans, pushing a hand through his hair.
“An honest one.” I jerk a shoulder.
“It’s inappropriate.”
“Since when have you given a shit about what’s appropriate?” I almost laugh. When did he get knighted in sainthood?
“Just go easy on her, okay?”
I hold my hands up in surrender and smirk when he loosens the collar of his shirt.
Her talking about sexual fulfillment is getting to him too. We go back through to the living space.
“So, Eli not being good at sex was only part of the reason you fled, what was the other?” I ask, ignoring my brother’s death glare.
“I have nothing to compare Eli too, so it’s unfair to call him bad, but yes, there was another reason.”
“And that is?” Cash asks before I can say anything ‘inappropriate.’
She unclasps the necklaces from her neck and drops them into Cash’s palm.
“Clara was wearing this the night she left and didn’t return.”
“It wasn’t on her body.” He frowns, examining the chain.
Mona leaps to her feet, moving away from him. “How would you know that?” she gasps, fear taking over her features. I don’t want her to fear us.
“He discovered her body,” I say for him, edging forward. He clutches the necklace, his head disappearing into his hands.
“It was the worst night of my entire life. Still is,” he chokes out.
“If she left the island wearing that, but it wasn’t on her body, how did you get it?” I ask, watching her to see if she’s going to break.
“It was on my doorstep wrapped as a birthday gift yesterday.”
Cash stands abruptly, making her jump. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means the killer took it from her body and is now taunting her sister with it.”
Cash’s eyes cut to me. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“What doesn’t?” Mona asks, still wary of us.
“Sit down, Mona. Let’s finish the story of how Cash met your sister. You have nothing to fear from us. We’d never hurt you,” I assure her, wanting it to be true.
She keeps her distance but sits.
“Our mother got sick,” I say, void of emotion. It destroyed us when she fucking abandoned us, our father telling us she didn’t care or love us. We were five years old. My sorrow grew into anger and resentment, but Cash just grieved the loss of her.
“She came to see us. That’s how we found out about the kid, Eli,” Cash adds.
“When it came down to it, your father said Jesus would heal her, but she knew that was fucking crazy. She needed doctors, hospital treatment.”
“That’s why she left?” Mona asks.
“She went back after my father paid for treatment.”
“But she didn’t come back.” Mona shakes her head.
“She did,” we both say in unison. “I brought her there myself,” Cash states.
“So, she left a second time?”
“What are you talking about?” Cash asks, confused.
“Judith? Eli’s mother left the island a long time before Clara and was forbidden to return. She never came back.”
What the fuck?
Fourteen
Cash
I look to my brother, who has the same confused look as me.
“You’re saying you haven’t seen Judith on the island since she left before Clara?”
“Correct. Eli has always felt like he had to make it up to my father. He was ashamed of his mother, wouldn’t speak about her.”
“That makes no sense. I took her back myself. It’s how I met Clara. She was down by the water. I knew I couldn’t dock, so my mother showed me a place to drop her. Your sister was there playing in the water.”
“She never told me any of this.” Mona inhales, her hands clutching the necklace I gave back to her.
“What did she tell you?” Colt asks, sitting on the arm of the couch.
“That there’s a whole world out there, that when a boy you love kisses you, you get butterflies in your stomach and shivers in your spine,” she says dreamily, lost to the memory. “She only told me fairytales.”
“They’re not just stories, islander.” Colt reaches over, brushing her hair over her shoulder. Her eyes dart to his, a bloom of red coloring her neck.
“If your mother returned but was caught, she’d be in the dungeon.” Mona turns to look at me, lines creasing her brow.
“She chose to go back. It’s her own fault where she ended up,” Colt grinds out, folding his arms.