Chapter Sixty-Eight
The last thing Isla had expected was to be back in the Corrigan house, trying once again to sleep as she had the first night she’d been there.
It was déjà vu, and Isla hated it. Sleep eluded her.
Again, the large size of the room, the darkness, and feeling very small in this very big space were too much for her to settle down.
And there was all that had transpired tonight, and the gnawing feeling that not everything was done. Not everyone was safe.
Worse than the large oaks outside the window once again casting long, clawed shadows across the room was the deep-set unease from earlier that lingered in the back of her mind.
She kicked at the white plush five-star-hotel-level duvet as she flipped onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
Her mind was one of those old movie reels with the two spinning wheels of recorded tape, replaying the night’s chaos in her mind: Jackson’s fury at the recording, his lies and murderousness laid bare; Bennett’s smugness and the callousness with which he’d treated his sister and lied about what he knew of what had happened to her all this time, despite knowing her absence was eating away at their father; Brooke’s venom, maliciousness, and manipulation and the way she still, even in the end, tried to play victim, acting like everything Jackson had done had been on his own and not because she’d made him think he’d ever have a chance to be in Victor’s position.
But most of all, seeing Eden in that grave.
Seeing how the chain glimmered like a beacon in the dark, letting everyone know that she was there, had been there all this time, and no one knew.
Out of everything they’d discovered that night, knowing what Eden had endured—betrayals on every level, even by Isla, who’d left her behind when she should have spoken up and fought for someone to listen to her—was the hardest to swallow.
Isla didn’t know how she could live with the guilt, which was exponentially worse than it had been these past years, when imagination and willful ignorance had allowed her to pretend that maybe, just maybe, Eden was okay. Very much like Victor.
Isla couldn’t begin to imagine how he was feeling.
She hated how he’d had to find out. In front of his family like that, hearing his daughter at the worst moments of her life.
But it had been the only way to open his eyes.
The only way for Victor to confront the rotten truth about the family he held in such high regard.
It had been the only way for him to see clearly how he had caused it all by pitting child against child, wife against lover, company against family.
His willful ignorance had been the linchpin to the downfall of the Corrigans as he, and the world, knew them.
If he let the world know. That would be his true test. Owning up to his mistakes and the mistakes of his family and letting the chips fall where they may.
They’d all come to the field, their lies exposed, their guilt and need for survival driving Brooke, Bennett, and especially Jackson to the extreme, to their attempt to rid the world of Eden’s body for good.
What a fucked-up family they were. But the thing that ate at Isla the most was that Jackson had escaped.
Even after being shot, in the commotion of the field being flooded with police and security guards and staff, and with their immediate response to see if Eden was really buried there, Jackson had once again used that opportunity to disappear.
Isla didn’t believe Jackson would let this be his end.
He’d played the long game. He’d done all this simpering behind Brooke and kowtowing to Victor to get his son in the perfect alignment for succession as Victor’s heir.
There was no way Jackson, who’d done so much they did know and likely much more they didn’t, would give up on Bennett or on taking the company from the man he hated the most. The hatred he had in his eyes every time he thought no one was looking was burned into her memory.
She shuddered. If anyone ever looked at her like that, she would .
. . wait. Brooke had looked at her like that, so scratch that.
Isla tossed and turned. She considered sneaking to Myles’s room, wondering if that would make her look pitiful in that she didn’t want to be alone. But his room was all the way on the other side of the mansion, and she couldn’t bring herself to.
Isla dressed in jeans and the UCLA sweatshirt she’d had with her when she arrived, not knowing where the night’s events would take her.
She was about to walk out when she stubbed her toe hard on something on the floor.
The rock from the hunting party. It had fallen out of the backpack she’d carried with her when she’d arrived at the house earlier, and now the backpack had been kicked over and the rock spilled out to inflict bodily harm on her. Toe stubs in the dark—the worst kind.
After breathing through the pain, she shoved her feet in her sneakers.
She picked up the rock and weighed it in her hand, and though it had attacked her, the chunk of granite and stone brought a sense of relief she couldn’t explain.
It had somehow become her safety blanket.
She shoved it in the front pocket of her sweatshirt, not caring that it made the sweatshirt hang low from its weight.
Absent all the chaos of earlier that night, the serenity and quiet in the darkened mansion made Isla instantly feel better. She shoved her hands inside the front of her sweatshirt, holding the rock between her hands as she walked toward the back stairs, heading to the first level.
“Wonder what he’d say if I just showed up,” she mused, her steps slowing as she rounded a corner and considered banking left to the hall Myles stayed in when he was sleeping at the house as he was that night, like she was.
The wall sconces were turned low, enhancing the ambience that the mansion was down for the night. After all it was past 2 a.m.
“Yeah.” She grinned to herself, wild thoughts swirling in her head.
It had been that kind of night. “I’m gonna do that.
” Her lips curled up at the thought. But first, she couldn’t show up with this thing.
She contemplated jogging back to her room to leave the rock—didn’t want to scare the man, after all; she had other things in mind—but that meant extra time, so scratch that.
She was about to pull the rock out and place it, temporarily, on a table she knew had to be worth several grand.
If Brooke had been here to see, she’d have burst a blood vessel at the thought of Isla possibly scratching one of her overpriced tables.
She heard the faint sounds of heavy, hurried footsteps on carpet and a door opening.
She stilled. The house stilled with her.
A dead silence before a massive storm. The familiar dread that had kept her awake in bed came back in a rush as she strained her ears to hear where in this massive building the noise had come from.
Another noise—a muffled thump and another sound.
Her body tingled, on alert. It was coming from the direction of Victor’s study.
She reached for her phone because something was wrong.
But she found two things wrong. One, her phone was back in her room.
She’d left the phone but taken a rock. Dumb move.
Second, what if she was overreacting—extra jumpy after that whole scene in the woods and at the grave?
Victor probably decided to work late as he usually did in his study.
Maybe he was feeling sentimental and looking once again at that wooden box where he’d kept his most precious treasure.
Yes, that was understandable, and it made sense after what he’d learned tonight.
Or . . . and now her mind raced with something else . . . not racy thoughts of a naked Myles, the irritating hunk Corrigan, but terror-filled ones. Thoughts that there was one thread that still dangled menacingly.
She moved cautiously, the thick carpet muffling her steps as she hurried in the direction of Victor’s study.
Her heart lurched as she noticed dark droplets marking her path, guiding her to the sliver of light spilling from the study.
She dropped to a knee, pressing a finger into one of the droplets.
She was both disgusted and curious at the same time and positive she was about to regret her life choices.
In the dim light, she stared at the wet smear on her fingers, rubbing them. She looked closer. Not water.
But blood.