He nodded. “I was seventeen. He shipped me off to a boarding school in the UK. I tried keeping in contact with your mother, but…” Guilt played out all over his face.
She picked up his hand. “It wasn’t his fault. After everything that happened, I couldn’t even look him in the face, knowing the lies spreading about him were my fault. It was my choice to end our friendship.”
But none of that mattered to me. All I could hear and think now was that every day, every moment of my life had been a lie. One that was born of an unspeakable evil. It echoed around my ears like a storm, building strength with every ticking second until I was sure I was going to explode.
I needed to leave. I needed to get the hell out of this house and away from everything and everyone.
I strode stiffly to the counter and picked up my car keys. I turned apologetic eyes on Heath and Mae. “I can’t be here,” I choked out.
Mae grabbed my hand. “You can. Talk to them.”
But she had a false sense of who I really was. She knew the Liam Banks outer shell. The one who laughed and joked to avoid showing something real. It had been chipped away by my mistakes with Heath’s trial. By what I’d done to Rowe.
But this? There was no coming back from it. The shell around me exploded, leaving me raw and vulnerable in a way I couldn’t stand.
I clutched my keys in my hand, but there was one thing I had to do before I left. My mother stood, tears rolling down her face, watching me move around her living room like the walking dead. I wouldn’t have that. I swept her into my arms and hugged her again. “This isn’t your fault.”
Her knees gave way, and the floodgates opened, her tears wetting my shirt as she cried.
QB stood and was there to put his arms around her when I transferred her to him. Something passed between us, a moment of understanding. “I got her, don’t worry.”
Mae and Heath watched on, their faces etched with worry and indecision.
Mae rubbed her palms over her thighs. “We can’t just drive out of here with Heath. Not in broad daylight.”
“We can’t stay here, either.” We’d already put my mom in enough danger.
QB glanced toward the front door. “There’s cops everywhere. All the airports would have been notified by now, and I’m betting the entire town is roadblocked.” He scratched at his beard. “You might get out of town through Johnson Lane, if there’s still no house on that vacant lot that backs onto the woods. You could hunker down there for a while until the heat dies off. You might have to walk because it’s pretty overgrown this time of year, but we used to have parties out there back when we were in school.”
I still couldn’t quite believe this man was my brother. He looked a lot like my grandfather, their eyes a similar color, their cheekbones high and regal.
I nodded my thanks and made for the door, my strides robot stiff. There’d been too many bombs dropped here.
The biggest one plummeted straight into the very core of who I was.
I left my mother’s house feeling absolutely nothing.
9
Mae
Liam drove to the edge of Saint View. I sat in the passenger side again, Heath in the back, with a baseball cap pulled low on his head, Rowe’s guard uniform left for QB to burn. I shot glances at Liam, more and more worried by what I saw in his expression. Even last night, when everything had been scary and going to shit, there’d been traces of Liam’s natural good humor. But right now, there was nothing. A complete and total blankness. He drove on autopilot, oblivious to anything going on around him.
Including the cop car coasting down the hill in the opposite direction.
I gasped, and behind me, Heath let out a guttural swear.
I was sure neither of us breathed.
But the cop was in a hurry to get somewhere else and passed us by without stopping. Liam blinked as it drove by but didn’t utter a word. He made the relevant turns, getting us to the vacant lot that bordered the woods.
I glanced at the GPS on my phone. Rowe’s cabin was only a five-mile walk, but I doubted there would be a well-worn path that led straight to his door.
“Just drop me here,” Heath said. “It’s too far for Mae to walk in those shoes.”
I shook my head. “I’m not leaving you again. Trying to find you on the streets last night nearly sent me gray. I’m coming with you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re gonna walk five miles in heels and a business skirt?”
“I’m counting on you piggybacking me after two.”
He shook his head with a smile on his lips, but he didn’t argue any further.
Liam got us as close to the woods as he could, but he didn’t make a move to turn off the car.
“You aren’t coming?” I asked.
“I’ll meet you at the cabin later. Can’t leave my car here. It’ll stick out like a sore thumb and draw unwanted attention.”
Liam’s hundred-thousand-dollar car had no business being in a Saint View neighborhood. Especially if its owner was nowhere to be seen.
But I hesitated over the dead nothing behind his eyes. He glanced over when I didn’t shut the door.
“Go, Mae,” he snapped. “The longer you hang around, the more likely it is for someone to see us.”
I blinked at his tone. He’d never spoken to me like that before. I knew where it came from, and I hated it, but he was right. I stepped back and shut the door.
He took off without waiting to see if we made it into the woods. He didn’t look back.
Hurt curdled deep inside me at his rejection, but Heath hustled me into the privacy of the trees. It was only once we were a hundred yards in that he stopped. “He didn’t mean it, you know that, right? He’s hurting.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“His whole life just imploded. That’s gonna take him some time.”
“I just don’t like seeing him in pain. I want to fix it.”
Heath sighed. “I don’t think this is one any of us can fix for him.”
I hated feeling helpless. But at least Heath and I had other things to focus on. I checked the GPS on my phone. “It’s a pretty straight walk to Rowe’s cabin from here.”