Chapter 38
Michael
I’m seething.
This motherfucker’s been lying to us all, but more importantly, he’s been lying to Adalaide. What’s his angle? Why did he do it? How long has this con been going on?
My grip on the steering wheel is so tight my knuckles are white.
Zane hasn’t said a word since we left the flower shop.
The fact that he folded the second I looked at him told me everything I needed to know. I probably should’ve had Dad come back me up, but after everything I’ve learned about Zane, I didn’t think he was physically dangerous.
I fucking hope I’m not wrong.
He’s not technically under arrest. Despite trespassing, neither of the farmers who found his camps wants to press charges, but there’s no way in hell we’re going to let him stay around our family without an explanation.
Uncle Cooper was the one who called me. He said the results came in on Friday afternoon, but we’d all left a little early to celebrate the end of the tourist season, so none of us had seen the email.
He’d asked how I wanted to play this, and I decided a nonconfrontational approach was the best option. I needed to spare Addie the hurt that seeing one of her best friends in handcuffs would’ve brought.
When I park in front of the station, Zane stays in the front seat of my truck.
“Am I under arrest?” The resignation in his tone tells me he’s prepared for me to say yes.
I take a deep breath in an attempt to calm my rage. “Not at the moment. But it’s time to start telling the truth.”
Zane slowly nods before getting out of my truck and walking toward the front doors of the station. I follow closely behind, becoming more unsure of where this is going to end up.
Uncle Cooper and Dad are standing in the empty foyer. They both nod before leading us to one of the interview rooms. Zane sits in one of the chairs while the three of us sit on the other side of the table.
Zane leans his elbows on the table and runs his hand through his stick-straight black hair. “What do you want to know?”
Dad and Cooper give each other knowing looks. Zane isn’t going to start spilling his guts, but if they ask the right questions, they’ll get the straight truth out of him.
“How long have you been in Sonoma?” Cooper starts.
“Almost three months now. Since the first time I came to see Addie.”
My eyebrows fly up my forehead. Zane seems to sense my disbelief and begins to clarify. “I did have a security job in Greensboro for a while, and my apartment also got condemned. I didn’t lie about that. I just wasn’t truthful about when it happened.”
“Why were you sleeping in barns?”
Zane shrugs. “More space. My truck doesn’t quite fit a guy my size. Then I realized the farmers found my hiding spots, so I sucked it up and started making do.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell Addie you lost your job?” Dad asks.
“I didn’t want to impose on her. It was my mess. I needed to figure out a way to make it on my own. Obviously, I failed at that. I’d drained my savings when I called her. I couldn’t afford to eat or shower anymore, so I had to ask for help.”
Zane keeps glancing at me. Something in his eyes has questions swirling in my gut, but I can’t figure out exactly what I want to ask.
“How did you figure out it was me?” he asks.
“You left a fingerprint at one of your camps. Since the security company you worked for had your fingerprints on file, the lab was able to match the print.”
He accepts that answer without much in the way of surprise. “What happens now?”
“Well—” Cooper looks at Dad and then me. “I suppose nothing. Neither of the farmers who found your camps wants to press charges, since you didn’t break or steal anything.”
Dad adds, “As long as you’re telling the whole truth, we’ll let you go—with the warning that lying in our family isn’t tolerated.”
Zane bites his lip as his gaze connects with mine. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I squint at him. “Should I?”
“I wasn’t really sure if you would. We were little the last time I saw you.”
His words are like a sledgehammer to my memories. My eyes blur with images of a dark-headed little boy, several years younger than me, with a black eye that matched the bruises on my back.
“Zanie?” I croak.
Tears spill over his eyes. “Hi, Mikey.”
I bolt.
My chair flips over, the door bangs open, and I’m running for my life. I don’t even know where I’m going.
Get away. Get away. Get away.
The mantra repeats over and over in my head until my lungs are bursting and I’m falling to my knees behind some trees on the edge of the park.
My stomach heaves, my body emptying itself of everything it can.
If only it worked on memories of things better left forgotten—events my brain had long buried and didn’t need to resurrect.
Tears flow down my face, a product of trying to exorcise the demons in my head.
Mom always told me that when our bodies are so full of emotions, sometimes the only way we can get them out is through our eyes.
Her explanation gave me permission to cry whenever I needed to, when all I had learned before was that tears were a quick way toward a beating.
Despite my efforts, the repressed memories still come of baby Zane.
He never cried.
I don’t know if he knew it would lead to horrible things or if he was born knowing how to survive that hellhole, but he’d make these little squeaks when he was hungry.
At four, I’d made it my mission to take care of him.
I’d watched our mom make him enough bottles that I knew what to do when she was lost in her drug haze.
Those early years weren’t horrible.
Our biological mother would mostly leave us alone. Now and then she’d make us something to eat, but for the most part, we fended for ourselves. Or at least, I did my best to keep Zane alive.
I remember being so excited to have a little brother. I thought I’d finally have a built-in friend to play with and keep me company when I didn’t have anyone else around.
And that’s how it was. For a little while, at least.
Zane was my best friend, even if he was too little to really play the same things I played.
Then Mom brought home a boyfriend one day, and our lives were irrevocably changed. I did my best to shield Zane from him, but I couldn’t always stop the monster.
One day, a knock at the door led to me being locked in a closet. I was told that if I made a single noise, I wouldn’t get to eat the rest of the week. I was already starving, so I didn’t make a sound.
I was left in there all day, and when I was finally allowed to leave, Zane was gone. For four years, I was the only target for their rage. My memories of my little brother slowly disappeared in a haze of pain that I had to block out for my own sanity.
It was pure survival that I never thought about him again. My only goal each day was to not piss off the adults.
And now he’s here. How the fuck did he find me? How is he connected to Addie? Did he purposely seek her out?
The thought makes me straighten.
I need the entire story. Right fucking now.
I’m breathing hard as I burst back into the police station. I don’t even know if they’re still here. I can’t imagine my dad would let this guy go without an explanation, but who knows? Maybe he really is a con artist and spun this fantastical story about being my half brother.
I step into the doorway of the small interrogation room. I’m looming, really, trying to put up a front that this guy isn’t going to get away with whatever story he’s about to weave.
Zane remains at the table, his hands in his hair, while he rests his elbows on his knees. There’s a cup of water in front of him, but Dad and Uncle Cooper aren’t here anymore.
His head whips up at my entrance. Those familiar hazel eyes spear me with regret and longing.
Okay, so he looks like the Zane I once knew. His hair even sticks up the same way it did when he was a baby.
“Start talking. Did you stalk Addie? Does she know? How the fuck are you here?”
Zane rubs the back of his neck. “No, I didn’t stalk Addie. No, she doesn’t know. And I honestly don’t know how this happened.”
I simply stand here, my arms locked across my chest. I make an imposing figure. I’m fully aware I’m using my stature to intimidate him. But he needs to know I won’t put up with bullshit.
“The way Addie and I met was purely by coincidence. I worked at UNC as a janitor, and Addie was one of the few people who saw me as a person. She was magnetic. I couldn’t help but be drawn in by how warm and welcoming she is. I’d never felt so accepted in my entire life.”
The sincerity of his voice makes me soften just a fraction. I’m fully aware of the effect Addie has on people.
“We started hanging out. I got to know her slowly, and one day, she was lamenting about how much she loathed being in love with you. She hated that she couldn’t get over a guy who had no interest in her.
So I said, ‘Show me a picture of this guy.’ I wanted to know what the stupid idiot who didn’t love Addie looked like. ”
I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from smirking. As I’ve gotten to know him a little better, I can imagine this conversation between the two of them. It’s exactly what he’d have said in that moment.
“I almost had a heart attack when I saw you. Fuck, you looked exactly the same.” He leans back and pulls out his wallet. Then he’s handing a well-worn Polaroid to me. I cautiously take it, as if it’s going to come alive and bite me.
I suck in a breath when I see the two of us as kids.
He’s right. I don’t look much different now than I did back then.
My arm is wrapped around Zane in his stroller, a genuine smile on my face as we cheese it up for the camera.
We were at a local carnival that day. A guy and his wife noticed that our mom wasn’t around.
They’d asked if I knew where she was, and I’d told them she left with a friend and we were waiting for her to come back.
They bought us snacks, and he offered to take our picture as a way to distract us. Looking back, I’m pretty sure his wife had called CPS, but our mom came back before they arrived, and we left.
He’d written our names on the bottom and put the picture in my backpack. How did Zane end up with it?
As if he heard my silent question, he says, “The day after Mom’s boyfriend kicked me and gave me a black eye, I was supposed to have a visitation with my real dad. Apparently, he’d been fighting for custody since I was a few months old and had finally been rewarded visitation rights.
“A social worker came to the apartment since I hadn’t shown up for the visitation.
When she saw my black eye, she got me out of there immediately.
They told her they didn’t have any other kids, that I was the only one there.
And she believed them, the idiot. She took your backpack, thinking it was mine, and that’s how I ended up with that picture.
“I never stopped looking for you, Mikey. I held onto that picture like a lifeline, showing Dad I had proof even if my memories were hazy. At first, he didn’t believe me since the social worker told him I was the only kid there.
He thought maybe I was talking about another kid in the apartment complex.
As I got older and kept pestering him about you, he finally had a cop friend look into it.
Said you’d been adopted and our mom and her boyfriend were in jail. ”
In my silence, Zane continues to talk. “I was so happy to hear you’d gotten out of there and that you were safe. I hoped I’d get to see you again one day. I just never imagined it would be like this.
“I should’ve told Addie right then, but I was so shocked that by the time I recovered enough to say anything, she’d moved on, and it was too late. Then I just became a coward.”
I stare at my half brother for a long moment, and then I turn and leave without saying another word.