“You know it wouldn’t matter,” Colt grunts. “He’ll find a way to pretend nothing was happening and it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“But it might stop him from whatever he’s doing now.”
We’re already turning into the driveway. “You should wait out here, just in case.”
The words are barely out of Colt’s mouth when it happens.
When the windows of the house blow out.
When a fireball shoots into the air.
At first, I don’t know what is happening. It looks like a scene from a movie, so unreal, so intangible.
Then the truck shakes. The aftershock from the explosion rocks the vehicle. My heart clenches in my chest.
My ears are ringing, and everything’s blurry. I try to speak, try to scream, but I can’t hear myself. Colt grabs my arms, and I can’t figure out why at first. Why can’t I hear? His lips are moving, but I can’t hear anything he’s saying.
The ringing subsides after a few moments and so does the strange, foggy feeling in my head. Once it’s gone, there’s only one thing on my mind. “Mom!” I’m already unbuckling my belt with one hand while throwing the door open with the other.
“Leni, wait!” But I can’t wait. How am I supposed to wait? The fucking house exploded and is now on fire, and my mother is in there. She’s in there somewhere.
“Mom! Mom!” I scream as I run across the lawn to where the house is in flames. Glass and wood and siding and shingles are everywhere, and I run through them with Colt behind me, shouting my name. “Mom!”
“Leni, wait!” Colt grabs me around the waist and pulls me back before I can reach the front door. “You can’t go in there!”
“But Mom!” I strain and stretch, trying to fight my way out of his arms. She was trying. She knew she was wrong. Why didn’t I tell her I forgave her? I ignored what she needed, my forgiveness. I could’ve given it to her. I have to tell her.
Colt pulls me backward and away from the house. My lungs burn, my throat is raw from screaming, and my muscles ache from fighting Colt.
A moment later, the left side of the house collapses in on itself. The deafening sound of glass breaking and wood splintering fills the area. The smell of burning rubble invades my senses, and all I can do is collapse just as the house did.
“No!” I croak, dropping to the ground. Colt’s arms are still around me, and I think that’s the only reason I’m not falling apart. Because of him, my heart is still in my chest instead of spreading out on the driveway in a thousand little pieces.
He holds me for a long time, well past the point when flashing lights dance over the ruins as fire trucks come speeding our way.
CHAPTER40
It’s late by the time we reach Colt’s apartment, hours after the explosion and everything that happened after. I’m pretty sure if he didn’t help me out of the truck and into the building, I might have sat in the passenger seat and stared through the windshield until morning. I don’t feel anything. Why don’t I feel anything?
Once we’re inside, Colt leads me to the sofa and has me sit before pulling out his phone and placing yet another call. “Hey, it’s me. For fuck’s sake, call me back, text me, something. Let me know where you are.” I don’t need to ask who he called. Nix is MIA and has been since Colt first called him after the police arrived and pulled us away from the house.
I don’t think I’ve ever been asked the same questions so many times in a row. Yes, I received a phone call from my mother that inspired my stepbrother and me to go to the house. No, I didn’t see anybody who shouldn’t have been around—no strange cars, no people. No, we didn’t hear anything coming from the house before the explosion.
No, I can’t imagine who would do this.
Then again, the detectives we spoke to made it a point to remind us there’s no way of knowing just yet exactly what happened. Why did the house explode like it did? “It could be a faulty gas line. Unfortunately, these things do happen. Did your mother say anything about a strange smell in the house?”
The question shouldn’t have made me laugh, but it did, laughter I couldn’t hold back no matter how embarrassing it was. The two detectives exchanged a look I knew was one of concern but not surprise. They’ve probably seen enough people in shock to dismiss things like that.
No, there wasn’t a strange smell in the house. It was something much worse.
Did he do it? Why would he have done it? No, I can’t believe he would deliberately blow up his own house to cover up what he’d done. Not while he was still inside. Granted, we don’t know for sure whether he was, but facts are facts. There’s no reaching James on his phone, he wasn’t at the office, and his car was in the driveway. It’s now ruined, of course, buried under a mountain of rubble.
“We still don’t know for sure.” Colt crouches in front of me, taking my hands and rubbing them briskly like he’s trying to rub life into me. “They could have gone somewhere. He could have set something up and taken her away to cover it up, you know? I wouldn’t put that past him. We still have to hope.”
It’s like I’ve never seen him before. Who is this person? Kind and helpful and sweet. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” I whisper. It’s the first thing I’ve said since we parted ways with the detectives, who promised they’d pay a visit as soon as they knew anything.
“I would believe just about anything right now because I would put nothing past him. I’m so sorry. You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to tell you everything all this time. I just couldn’t.”