He did it. He killed his family.
Everything I read online said after a hung jury and a retrial the case was dismissed due to insufficient evidence. The entire family’s fingerprints were found on the murder weapon. The angle of the gunshot entry wounds were sketchy, and eventually, after Lucas was held in juvenile detention for almost three years, it was determined to be a mass suicide and he was released. Controversy stirred around the case because of Alexis, the youngest victim. It seemed unlikely that a seven-year-old would willingly commit suicide, but nothing could be proven without witness testimony.
Whatever Lucas said, there’s no way he’s capable of murder.
But Gage, for Lucas’s protection, I believe, would kill.
I study the man now, so different than the boy from the pictures online, and yet somewhat the same. He’s pressed against the door, eyes cast out the window. I don’t see a cold-blooded killer; I see a shattered soul who’s pieced himself back together and despite his abuse has shown nothing but compassion and selflessness, putting his own desires aside by staying away to ensure my protection.
So I’ll risk safety to give him what he needs.
I reach for him with shaky fingers and slide them behind his neck. “Lucas?”
“I can’t . . . breathe.”
My eyes burn as he becomes more and more like a boy and less like the man I’ve come to know. The man I’ve come to care deeply for.
“The air . . . I can’t.”
“Okay.” I hop out of the truck and jog around the hood to the driver’s side. Cautiously I open the door.
“Come on out.” I try to sound strong, try to force a steady voice despite my anxiety. “You need fresh air, Lucas. It’ll be okay.”
I peel his fingers back from their clenched position at his thigh.
He’s shaking and his palm is sweaty, but he grips my hand. “Why . . .? Why are you doing this to me?”
My heart fractures and shreds through me. I don’t want to hurt him, I never wanted to hurt him, but I can’t stand secrets between us. My job has always been to seek out information and search for the truth. That’s all I want. I never expected what I’d learned about Lucas to tear him down so low.
I hold tight to his hand and tug. “Come on. You need to stand, get some air. It’ll be okay.” My voice cracks and I realize the lie in my words. It won’t be okay; nothing about any of this is okay.
My conscience whispers that I am holding on to the hand that was responsible for ending the lives of four people, three of them children.
I’m in the forest alone with a self-proclaimed murderer and although I trust Lucas completely, I sense Gage just below the surface.
He drops out of the truck but only to lean back against it, his head bowed, his free arm wrapped around his body and tucked under his biceps. He tries to free the hand in my grip but I refuse to let him go. “I never wanted you to find out.”
“I don’t believe it was your fault.”
He shakes his head. “How can you say that?”
“You tried to kill yourself. You”—my gaze darts to the angry scar on his neck—“shot yourself in the neck.”
“Yeah, I . . . I don’t remember that. I don’t remember any of it because . . .” He lifts his chin and his gray eyes glisten. His eyebrows pinch together and he blinks slowly. “I wasn’t there.”
“Gage.” The single name reverberates in the air around us, sending goose bumps racing up my legs, down my arms, and across my neck.
His chin drops. “Gage,” he whispers.
“Tell me what he did, Lucas.” I squeeze his hand, encouraging him to trust me.
“You read the news reports. That’s all I know.” His head rolls on his shoulders. “Only Gage knows the truth.”
There wasn’t a single mention of Lucas’s psychiatric oddity in any of the articles I read. They all make Lucas out to be a loner, a decent student, a loving brother who neighbors said was always caring for his younger siblings. There was no mention of dissociative identity disorder. Matter of fact, according to published reports, Lucas passed all his psych evaluations and lie detector tests.
“Can’t you just ask him?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t communicate with that . . . side . . . of me. I can’t reach him.”
“So you’ll never really know what happened that day.”
His lifts his gaze. “No. When I was arrested, the entire time I was locked up, during the trial, he never surfaced. Not even once.” His expression twists in agony as if the helplessness, the being left in the dark, is eating him alive. “But it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Everyone died except me.” He has no idea what happened that day, has to live with the fact that he could be responsible for the death of his siblings.
Gage might not be able to tell Lucas what happened; my guess is he wouldn’t want him to know in order to protect him.
But he can tell me.