I can’t even process that right now. Too much is going on, too many layers to pull back.
At the heart of it is the certainty I know I can’t make him understand. Deep inside, I know she’s gone. No way would he let her live, not after she found the truth. He must have decided it would be easier to kill both of them. After all, she had already called me. So he knew I was aware of what she’d found. No way was he going to be able to keep his secret much longer.
If only we had gotten there sooner. Then again, we could have been caught in the explosion if we had.
“I’m so tired,” I whisper. That doesn’t even begin to describe it. The total exhaustion, the weakness in my muscles. “I should go back to my place.”
“No, you should stay here. The police said they will come by as soon as they know more.”
“Is that the only reason you want me to stay?”
“No. I want you to stay because I want you here. I don’t want you to be alone, and I don’t want to either. Please stay. You can lie down in my bed.”
I nod. The truth is, I would rather stay here as well. He doesn’t say another word, helping me up, showing me to the bedroom. My clothes reek of smoke, and I pull them off and toss them in a heap on the floor before crawling into bed and curling up on my side. I hear Colt calling Nix again and leaving another message as I close my eyes, grateful sleep is already pulling me under. I can’t stand being awake anymore.
* * *
“You need to eat something.”
“I’m not hungry. I already told you.” I’ve already told him multiple times, but he is relentless. I curl up, burying my face in Colt’s fluffy pillow. It smells like him.
“This isn’t about being hungry. This is about you taking care of yourself. You have to put something in you.” Turning my head enough to see him, I catch Colt looking out the window, frowning. “It’s almost dark, and you haven’t left the room all day. You at least need to eat.”
“I said, I am not hungry. I don’t think I could eat a bite of anything.” I roll onto my other side, away from him, but that doesn’t spare me the sound of his heavy sigh. I can’t bring myself to care very much right now that I’m making life difficult for him. My mother is dead, and I’m too busy trying to make sense of everything to care either way about food. It seems so trivial when I know she’s out there somewhere in that wreck of what used to be a house, buried under all that tile and marble, granite and hardwood. All the luxuries she ever wanted. They’re now her tomb. I squeeze my eyes shut and tuck my chin against my chest, fighting back another wave of emotion that levels me flat no matter how I try.
She died knowing she let me down. We never even got the chance to work things out.
“It isn’t like I don’t know how you feel.” He sits on the bed, the mattress shifting under his weight. “I still can’t get ahold of Nix, either.”
I roll over, now sorry for glossing over what I know he’s going through. His back is to me, and I place a hand against it. “It could be a coincidence. I’m sure that’s what it is.”
I’m lying. It’s been twenty-four hours since the explosion—more than that, actually. Nix hasn’t so much as picked up his phone to send a quick text and let his brother know he’s okay. I can’t imagine why he would have been at the house, but anything is possible.
We both jump a little when the doorbell rings. Immediately, Colt hurries from the room, and I follow him with my heart in my throat. Who is it going to be? What will they have to tell us?
It’s the detectives from last night, people whose names I don’t quite remember. There are still a lot of things that are a blur. “Mr. Alistair, we wanted to come and speak with you personally about developments in the case.”
The woman—I think her name is Jones, maybe—looks over his shoulder to find me standing in the doorway leading from the bedroom. “Miss Peters, I’m glad you’re here as well. Why don’t we all sit down?”
And now I know it’s bad news. Not that I expected anything else. I’m not a little girl anymore. I know certain things aren’t possible, like surviving an explosion and the destruction that followed it. I sit on the sofa, my hands clasped between my knees, and Colt sits beside me. To these two, we are a stepbrother and stepsister family. I have to remember we’re not supposed to be more than that.
The man—Patterson? Maybe?—leads off. “It’s an ugly thing, what I’m about to tell you,” he warns. “After searching Mr. Alistair’s computer at his law firm, we have a pretty clear image of his state of mind.”
“What does that mean?” Colt asks.
“It means we found thousands of images and videos recorded over the course of several years.” His eyes drift my way. “Of you, Miss Peters.”
“Me?”
“You were a gymnast, were you not?” I nod, mute with surprise. “It seems Mr. Alistair had what can only be described as an obsession. He took videos of you during competitions and oftentimes zoomed in on specific body parts.” He clears his throat, his face darkening a little as he looks at his partner.
“The dates on the files stretch back four years to when you were fourteen years old,” she explains in a gentle voice. “I’m sure this must come as quite a shock, especially seeing as how he was your stepfather for a short time.”
“Mr. Alistair,” Patterson continues, looking at Colt. “Did you know about any of this? Did you ever have any idea of your father’s feelings toward your stepsister?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “Yes. I did. My brother and I both did. He moved us here so he could be closer to Leni. I knew about it even before we moved. It was the reason he…” His face crumples a little like there’s something he has to say, but he doesn’t know how to say it. “It was the reason he tried to kill our mother.”
I can’t wrap my head around it. I hear what he’s saying, but it makes no sense. Like he’s speaking another language.