Chapter 32
Sarah couldn’t sleep that night.
She was going to lose her brother.
And she was going to lose Miles Ryan.
As she lay in bed, she was reminded of the evening she and Miles had first made love in this room. She remembered it all— the way he’d listened when she told him she couldn’t have children, his expression when he’d told her that he loved her, how they’d whispered together for hours afterward, and the peace she’d felt in his arms.
It had seemed so right, so perfect.
The hours after Miles had left produced no answers. If anything, she was more confused than she had been earlier; now that the shock had passed and she was able to think more clearly, she knew that no matter what decision she made, nothing would ever be the same again.
It was over.
If she didn’t tell Miles, how could she face him in the future? She couldn’t imagine Miles and Jonah in her home, sitting around the Christmas tree and opening gifts, she and Brian smiling, pretending that nothing had ever happened. She couldn’t imagine looking at Missy’s pictures in his house, or sitting with Jonah, knowing that Brian had killed his mother. Nor, of course, would it be the right thing to do. Not with Miles hell-bent on making sure that Otis paid for the crime. She had to tell him the truth, if for no other reason than to make sure that Otis Timson wasn’t punished for something he didn’t do.
More than that, Miles had the right to know what really happened to his wife. He deserved that.
But if she did tell him, then what? Would Miles simply believe Brian’s story and let it go? No, not likely. Brian had broken the law, and once she told him, Brian would be arrested, her parents would be devastated, Miles would never speak to her again, and she would lose the man she loved.
Sarah closed her eyes. She could live with never having met Miles.
But to fall in love with him and then lose him?
And what was going to happen to Brian?
She felt sick to her stomach.
She got out of bed, slid into a pair of slippers, and went to the living room, wanting desperately to find something, anything, to think about instead. But even there, she was reminded of all that had happened, and she knew with sudden certainty what she had to do. As painful as it was going to be, there was no other way around it.
When the phone rang the following morning, Brian knew it was Sarah on the other end. He’d been expecting the call, and he reached for the phone before his mother would have the chance to answer it.
Sarah got right to the point; Brian listened quietly. In the end, he said that he would. A few minutes later, his feet leaving foot-prints in the light snow, Brian made his way to the car.
His mind wasn’t on the drive; instead it was on the things he’d said the day before. He had known when he’d told her that Sarah would be unable to keep his secret. Despite her worries about him, about her future with Miles, she would want him to turn himself in. That was her nature; above all, his sister knew what it was like to be betrayed, and keeping silent would be a betrayal of the worst kind.
It was the reason, he thought, that he’d told her.
Brian spotted her just before he parked the car, outside the Episcopal church, where he’d once attended Missy’s funeral. Sarah was sitting on a bench, one that overlooked a small cemetery, so old that most of the writing on the headstones had worn away over the centuries. Even before he stepped out the door, Brian could see her plainly. She looked forlorn, truly lost in a way that he’d seen only once before.
Sarah heard him pull up and turned, though she did not wave. A moment later, Brian sat next to her.
Sarah, he knew, must have called in sick. The school where she taught, unlike his, had another week to go before vacation. As he sat there, he couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened had he not come home for Thanksgiving and seen Miles at the house or if Otis hadn’t been arrested.
“I don’t know what to do,” she finally whispered.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“You should be.”
Brian could hear the bitterness in her tone.
“I don’t want to go over all of it again, but I need to know that you were telling me the truth.” She turned to face him. Her cheeks were flushed in the chill, as if someone had pinched them.
“I was.”
“I mean about all of it, Brian. Was it really an accident?”
“Yes,” he said.
She nodded, though his answer didn’t seem to comfort her. “I didn’t sleep last night,” she said. “Unlike you, I can’t ignore this.”
Brian didn’t respond. There was nothing he could say.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked at last. “When it happened, I mean?”
“I couldn’t,” Brian answered. The day before, she had asked the same question, and he had answered in the same way.
She sat in silence for a long moment. “You have to tell him,” she said, staring out over the headstones. Her voice sounded like a shadow of itself.
“I know,” he whispered.
She lowered her head, and he thought he saw tears beginning to form. She was worried about him, but it wasn’t her worry that caused the tears. Sitting beside her, Brian knew that she was crying for herself.
Sarah went with Brian to Miles’s house. As she drove, Brian stared out the window. The movement of the car seemed to drain Brian of energy, but he was strangely unafraid of what was coming. His fear, he knew, had been passed to his sister.
They crossed the bridge, then turned on Madame Moore’s Lane, following the winding curves until they reached Miles’s driveway. Sarah pulled alongside his pickup and turned the key, extinguishing sound.
Sarah didn’t get out right away. Instead, she sat, holding the keys in her lap. She took a deep breath, then finally faced him. Her mouth was set in a tight, forced smile of support, then vanished. She slid her keys into her purse, and Brian pushed open the door. Together they started toward the house.
Sarah hesitated at the step, and for a moment, Brian’s eyes darted to the corner of the porch, where he’d stood so many times. As soon as it happened, he knew that he would tell Miles about the crime, but just as he had with his sister, he would keep silent about the other things he had done.
Steeling herself, Sarah walked to the door and knocked. A moment later, Miles opened the door.
“Sarah... Brian...,” he said.
“Hi, Miles,” Sarah answered. Her voice, Brian thought, was surprisingly steady.
At first, no one moved. Still upset from the day before, Miles and Sarah simply stared at each other, until Miles took a small step backward.
“Come in,” he said, leading them inside. He closed the door behind them. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“How about you, Brian?”
“No. I’m fine.”
“So what’s up?”
Sarah absently adjusted her purse strap. “There’s something I...I mean we, have to talk to you about,” she said awkwardly. “Can we sit down?”
“Sure,” Miles answered. He motioned toward the couch.
Brian took a seat next to Sarah, across from Miles. Brian took a deep breath, almost starting then, but Sarah cut him off.
“Miles... before we start, I want you to know that I wish I didn’t have to be here. I wish that more than anything. Try to keep that in mind, okay? This isn’t easy for any of us.”
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Sarah glanced toward Brian. She nodded, and with that, Brian felt his throat suddenly go dry. He swallowed.
“It was an accident,” he said.
At that, the words poured forth, the way he’d rehearsed them a hundred times in his head. Brian told him everything about that night two years ago, leaving nothing out. His mind, however, wasn’t on the words.
Instead it was on Miles’s reaction. At first there was none. As soon as Brian began, Miles slipped into a different posture, that of someone who wanted to listen objectively, without interruption, the way he’d been trained as a sheriff. Brian, he knew, was making a confession, and Miles had learned that silence was the best way to get an uncensored version of events. It wasn’t until later, when Brian mentioned Rhett’s Barbecue, that Miles finally began to realize what Brian was telling him.
Then the shock set in. As Brian went on, Miles froze, his face draining of color. His hands tightened reflexively on the armrest. Nonetheless, Brian pressed forward. In the background, as if from somewhere far away, Brian heard his sister inhale sharply as he described the accident. He ignored the sound, continuing with his story, stopping only when he described the next morning in the kitchen, and his decision to keep silent.
Miles sat like a statue through it all, and when Brian lapsed into silence, Miles seemed to take a moment to register everything that Brian had told him. Then, finally, his eyes focused on Brian, as if seeing him for the first time.
In a way, Brian knew he was.
“A dog?” he rasped out. His voice was low and gravelly, as if he’d been holding his breath through the confession. “You’re saying she jumped in front of your car because of a dog?”
“Yes.” Brian nodded. “A black dog. A big one. There was nothing I could do.”
Miles’s eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to keep control. “Then why did you run?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t explain why I ran that night. The next thing I knew, I was in the car.”
“Because you don’t remember.” The anger in Miles’s tone was unmistakable, barely suppressed. Ominous.
“I don’t remember that part of it, no.”
“But the rest of it you do. You remember everything else about that night.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me the real reason you ran that night.”
Sarah reached out to touch Miles’s arm. “He’s telling the truth, Miles. Believe me—he wouldn’t lie about this.”
Miles shook off her hand.
“It’s okay, Sarah,” Brian said. “He can ask whatever he wants.”
“You’re damn right I can,” Miles added, his voice lowering even more.
“I don’t remember why I ran,” Brian answered. “Like I said, I don’t remember even leaving the scene. I remember being in the car, but that’s it.”
Miles stood from the chair, glaring. “And you expect me to believe that?” he said. “That it was Missy’s fault?”
“Wait a minute!” Sarah said, coming to her brother’s defense. “He told you how it happened! He’s telling the truth!”
Miles swiveled to face her. “Why the hell should I believe him?”
“Because he’s here! Because he wanted you to know the truth!”
“Two years later he wants me to know the truth? How do you know it’s the truth?”
He waited for an answer, but before she could respond, he suddenly took a small step backward. He turned from Sarah to Brian and back to Sarah again, as he considered what the answers to his questions meant.
Sarah had known exactly what her brother was going to say....
Which meant... that she’d known Otis was innocent. She’d tried to get him to back off. Let Charlie handle it, she’d said. What if Sims and Earl were wrong somehow?
She’d said those things because she’d known Brian was guilty.
But that made sense, didn’t it?
Hadn’t she said that she was close to her brother? Hadn’t she said he was the one person she could really talk to, and vice versa?
Miles’s thoughts, fed by adrenaline and anger, raced from one conclusion to the next.
She’d known but she hadn’t told him. She’d known and... and...
Miles stared at Sarah wordlessly.
Hadn’t she volunteered to help Jonah, even though it was out of the ordinary?
And hadn’t she befriended him as well? Gone out with him? Listened to him, tried to help him move on with his life?
Miles’s face began to twitch with barely suppressed rage.
She’d known all along.
She’d used him to assuage her own guilt. Everything they’d had was built on lies.
She betrayed me.
Miles stood without moving, without speaking, frozen in place. In the silence, Brian heard the heater come on.
“You knew,” he finally rasped out. “You knew he’d killed Missy, didn’t you?”
It was then, at that moment, that Brian understood not only that it was over between Sarah and Miles, but that, in Miles’s mind, they had never had anything at all. Sarah, though, seemed baffled, and she answered Miles as if the answer to his question were obvious.
“Of course. That’s why I brought him here.”
Miles raised his hand to stop her, jabbing his finger in her direction with every point he made.
“No, no... you knew he’d killed her and didn’t tell me.... That’s why you knew that Otis was innocent.... That’s why you kept trying to tell me to listen to Charlie....”
Sarah finally seemed to register the implication, and she suddenly, frantically, began shaking her head.
“No—wait—you don’t understand—”
Miles cut her off, unwilling to listen, each statement more furious than the last.
“You knew all along....”
“No—”
“You’ve known since the moment we met.”
“No—”
“That’s why you offered to help Jonah.”
“No!”
For a moment, it seemed as if Miles would strike her, but he didn’t. Instead he lashed out in another direction. He kicked the end table over, sending the lamp crashing. Sarah flinched and Brian rose from the couch to reach for her; Miles grabbed him before he could and spun him around. Miles was both stronger and heavier, and Brian could do nothing to stop him from wrenching his wrist up his back toward his shoulder blades. Sarah instinctively moved away from the commotion before she even realized what was happening. Brian didn’t resist, even as pain shot through his shoulder. He winced, his eyes closing, his face contorting.
“Stop! You’re hurting him!” Sarah screamed.
Miles held up a warning hand in her direction. “Stay out of this!”
“Why are you doing this! You don’t have to hurt him!”
“He’s under arrest!”
“It was an accident!”
But Miles was beyond reason, and he twisted Brian’s arm hard again, forcing him away from the couch, away from Sarah, toward the front door. Brian almost stumbled, and Miles grabbed at him, his fingers digging into Brian’s flesh. Miles pushed Brian into the wall as he reached for the handcuffs that were hanging on a peg near the door. Miles slapped them around one wrist and then the next, pinching them tightly.
“Miles! Wait!” Sarah shouted.
Miles opened the door and pushed Brian out, forcing him onto the porch.
“You don’t understand!”
Miles ignored her. He grabbed Brian’s arm and began dragging him toward the car. It was difficult for Brian to keep his balance, and he stumbled. Sarah rushed up behind them.
“Miles!”
Miles spun around. “I want you out of my life,” he hissed.
The hatred in his voice shocked Sarah into stopping.
“You betrayed me,” Miles said. “You used me.” He didn’t wait for Sarah to respond. “You wanted to try to make things better— not for me and Jonah, but for you and Brian. You thought if you did that, you’d feel better about yourself.”
She paled, incapable of saying anything.
“You knew from the beginning,” he went on. “And you were willing to let me go on without ever knowing the truth until someone else got arrested for it.”
“No, that’s not the way it happened—”
“Stop lying to me!” he boomed. “How the hell can you live with yourself?”
The comment lashed at her, and she responded defensively. “You’ve got it all wrong, and you don’t even care.”
“I don’t care? I’m not the one who did anything wrong here.”
“Neither did I.”
“And you expect me to believe that?”
“It’s the truth!” Then, despite her anger, Brian saw her eyes begin to well up with tears.
Miles paused momentarily but showed no sympathy at all. “You don’t even know what the truth is.”
With that, he turned and opened the door to the car. He shoved Brian in, then slammed the door and reached in his pocket for his keys. He pulled them out as he got in behind the wheel.
Sarah was too shocked to say anything more. She watched as Miles started the car, pressed the accelerator, then jammed the car into gear. The tires squealed as the car moved into reverse, backing toward the road.
Miles never glanced her way, and a moment later, he vanished from sight.