12
Henry and I race through the living room and down the hall, checking each room until we find the wreckage.
The ornate window of Mr. Abbott’s study—arched and filled with over a dozen panes—is decimated.
Outside, the agonized sounds continue. Immediately, my mind goes to last year’s vandalism incidents.
Did someone do more than attack the house this time? Have they hurt Adam or Bram?
But then Henry rushes to the desk chair and leans over, retrieving a football.
He slaps it into his opposite palm, his face a mixture of irritation and concern.
Then he strides out of the study and around to the French doors.
I follow until we both reach the large grassy knoll where the boys used to practice football.
Now, Bram is hunched over Adam, who is writhing around, crying and clutching his bloodied hand.
“What the hell happened?” Henry demands, rushing to them.
“I told him it was a terrible idea,” Bram snaps back, attempting to help Adam to his feet.
But Adam wants nothing to do with him. He lashes out with both hands, leaving a trail of blood across Bram’s cheek. Henry stops in his tracks, taking in the scene: Adam thrashing around on the grass like a wild animal, his bloodied pulp of a hand. Like an animal caught in a trap.
Bram is undeterred. He tackles Adam, pinning him to the ground and calming him, like one of those weighted blankets. Henry comes around, kneeling in front of Adam and whispering soothing words. I get the impression that the brothers have been through this routine before.
“What happened?” I ask as the boys lift Adam to his feet.
“I’ve got him,” Bram says, walking Adam over to the French doors.
Henry watches them for a moment, waiting. Once they’re out of earshot, his head falls in something like defeat. “He manipulated Bram into a game of catch.”
“Catch?” The idea is so horrific, it turns my stomach. “But he can barely hold a fork.”
“That’s why it was idiotic,” Henry says, jaw clenched. “Adam’s skin isn’t healed enough; his fingers barely function. He has another surgery planned for next month! Now, he’ll be lucky to keep the surgery date.”
That horrible moan repeats in my head. “Is he upset because of the pain, or because he missed the ball?” I ask, indicating the shattered window.
“Oh, I doubt Adam missed the ball,” Henry says flatly.
“That’s what tore his hands up. He tried this with me last week.
I finally agreed to a light game of catch, but Adam gets into this…
almost manic state, where he can’t remember his limitations.
Or refuses to accept them.” He blows air through his gritted teeth.
“He probably encouraged Bram to throw harder and harder until his skin broke down. And then he took his frustrations out on the house, which he’s been prone to do lately.
” His brows arch. “Better than on Bram and me, I guess. And if that window is any indication, maybe Adam should give up catching the ball and try out for quarterback.”
“Well, you should help Bram,” I say, nudging him along. “I’m heading home anyway. I’ll help with the mess first. You don’t want your dad to find his office covered in glass.”
A disappointed look crosses Henry’s face.
“No, we’ll clean it,” he says, shaking his head.
He gestures for me to walk ahead but, as I pass, reaches for my wrist. “I’m really sorry we can’t keep hanging out.
” His eyes are narrowed, like he’s unsure how I feel about his hand gradually sliding down my wrist.
When our palms lie flat against each other, I show him exactly how I feel about it by lacing my fingers through his. “I am too,” I say, heat blooming in my cheeks. “But you know where to find me.”
He grins. “I do.”
Once inside, his brothers’ voices ring out from the kitchen. Arguing.
“The doctors don’t know shit!” Adam shouts. “Russo paid them off! That bastard made me…this!” A sob breaks through. “He made me this. I hope he feels an ounce of what I feel. Now that he’s lost everything.”
A little prickle makes its way up the back of my neck.
Then a bang sounds, like Adam pounding a wall or a table, and Henry begins to lead me past the kitchen to the front door.
“I can see myself out,” I offer. “You should go in there. Make him a protein smoothie with peanut butter. It always seems to cheer him up.”
Henry takes a breath, staring down the gauntlet that is the doorway to the kitchen. I don’t blame him. Giving my hand a final squeeze, he says, “Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye.” I stop by the couch to grab my purse, then start in the direction of the foyer. But the instant Henry’s figure disappears into the kitchen, I race to the staircase.
Adam Abbott has a grudge against Dr. Russo, and right now, I’m starting to think that it was more than simply a possible motive for murder.
I think he could’ve actually done it. He may hate Dr. Russo enough to have taken the man’s daughter from him.
Henry has tasked me with this mission to help clear him and his brothers.
As counterproductive as it may be to search for evidence to support my new theory, I have to know the truth.
And I can’t ask for Henry’s help with this; he can’t know that my suspicions about his brother only increase by the day.
I’ve always done my best to stick up for the brothers because I believed in my heart that they had nothing to do with the accusations regarding Mariana last year.
I still want to believe the same about them now, with Kennedy’s murder.
And if Adam is innocent, I’ll do whatever it takes to help clear his name.
But if he did it—if he’s the one on the security camera footage, the secret boyfriend, the killer—then I’m not sure I want any part of this.
I tiptoe up the ancient staircase, careful with each step.
But the commotion in the kitchen has only grown since Henry joined in.
Adam accuses them of ganging up on him now.
A moment later, sure enough, the blender starts up.
I almost feel guilty for my ulterior motive in suggesting the smoothie, but at least no one hears me as I make it to the top of the staircase and slip into Adam’s room.
Easing the door shut behind me, I rush to Adam’s wardrobe in search of the hoodie.
I haven’t seen it on any of the triplets since Kennedy’s murder, and something tells me there’s a reason.
The cops think whoever was on that security camera footage was wearing the missing hoodie when Kennedy was brutally murdered. That means her blood would be on it.
If Adam was involved, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to leave it in his room.
The detectives could end up with a search warrant, and then it would be over for him.
So in a way, finding it here would almost exculpate him, at least in my eyes.
And if he had nothing to hide, he could turn it over to the cops and let them test it for DNA.
I scrounge around through the messy drawers and haphazardly hung contents of the closet, searching for it.
So far, it’s not here.
I move to the bed, dropping to my knees.
Wincing, I reach a tentative hand under it and move it around.
My fingers light on soft fabric, but when I tug the object free, it’s only a wadded-up graphic T-shirt.
I feel around some more, finding nothing but dust bunnies and a mini toy car that’s probably been down here since Adam was a toddler.
Defeated, I stand up, brushing off the front of my clothes. I get a stab of disappointment at not uncovering the hoodie, safe and sound. I don’t like the implications.
I do another scan of the room, and my eyes snag on a familiar spine on the bookshelf.
It’s my copy of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the one I lent to Henry. What’s it doing in Adam’s room?
I pad over to it, removing the book to find that it’s not my copy.
Mrs. Garrett’s Class Copy has been scribbled inside the front cover of this one.
Little blue and yellow sticky notes peek out between the pages, and I recognize Adam’s messy all caps handwriting.
Our assignment last year included annotating our free reading novel.
I get a woozy feeling suddenly, remembering that the day we chose our books was the day Mariana died.
The triplets never returned to school after that day—at least not last year.
Either Adam worked quickly on this assignment that very afternoon before the accident—which would not have been very like Adam—or he continued to read and annotate, even when he knew the novel would never be turned in for credit.
I flip through the pages, reading the passages he’s rewritten on the sticky notes, trying to make sense of his color-coded system and the drawings.
On one sticky note in particular is a black sketch of a star.
Underneath it, the words from the page have been copied: “Frankenstein! You belong then to my enemy—to him towards whom I have sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim…and in a moment he lay dead at my feet.”
That same prickle I felt downstairs runs up my spine now.
I remember this part of the novel. The words were spoken by Victor Frankenstein’s creation, the being he formed, only to abandon later.
On the note, Adam hasn’t merely copied the words in black; he’s underlined them in thick marker, red as blood.
At the newly thickened silence, panic surges through me. I should get out of here. For all I know, the boys could already be headed this way. There’s a perfectly functional bathroom downstairs, so I have no excuse to be up here.
But the bookshelf is overstuffed, and I have trouble sliding the novel back inside. I try forcing it to no avail. When I attempt to rearrange some books by tugging them out, something slips free onto the wooden floor.
I bend down to pick it up, finding a collage full of photographs. A prickling sensation runs from my fingertips up to the base of my neck: They’re all of Mariana Sanchez.
The photos haven’t been pasted on like the olden days. Instead, it’s a printed collage with colorful photo frames, graphics of hearts and flowers ornamenting the paper. The edge is torn, like the page has been ripped from a book.
I rush to return it to the shelf, struggling to find its location as my mind grapples with this. Adam has a collage of photographs of Bram’s girlfriend—Bram’s dead girlfriend—hidden in his room.
That’s when I spot where the collage came from. It’s a hardcover photo album, the kind you can customize online. This one has a title printed on the front cover in the center of a pink heart: Mariana and Bram Forever.
Finding this album here is bizarre, to say the least. But there could be a simple explanation. Maybe Bram couldn’t bear to have this album in his room, and Adam, not wanting his brother to regret throwing it away for good, offered to store it for him.
Then again, I may be projecting my own history here, considering that in his grief, my dad deleted some of my favorite home videos off the cloud, including the one I used to watch over and over in the months after Mom died.
It featured her singing “Daydream Believer” by the Monkees to a baby-sized version of me as I laugh and coo.
When I discovered the video was gone forever, I was torn up for days. I almost never forgave Dad for it.
But that was him. Just because Dad wanted to remove traces of what he lost doesn’t mean Bram would act the same way in his grief. I want to look at the rest of the pages, but my nerves are crackling; I have no idea what’s going on downstairs.
Album in hand, I tiptoe to the door and crack it open. I listen for the sound of voices or the creak of the staircase. Hearing nothing, I flip through the glossy sheets. The title page contains a handwritten note:
To Bram
All my love,
Mariana
This album was a gift for Bram. A handful of pages contain the couple at different events from the period they dated: sophomore year up until the fall of junior year, with one period of separation so short, hardly anyone was aware of it.
Then I get to the pages where Bram and Mariana are with company, namely Adam and Henry. I’m in two of the photos, one after a football game in which our team defeated our rival school, and another in the Abbotts’ pool.
My heart is thumping so violently that I almost turn the page and miss it.
In the pool photo, we’re all floating around on various inflatable toys.
I’m on a pink flamingo, laughing with a plastic margarita glass full of Sprite.
Mariana is on a massive dolphin, her smile wide as Bram tries to play-tackle her.
Henry is in midair, performing a cannonball.
I remember that Mrs. Abbott took the photo so we could all be in it—one of those rare occasions when she decided to act the part of the perfect mother, checking to ensure we were properly hydrated and wearing SPF.
Then I spot Adam. Standing on the steps, he’s the only person in the photo who isn’t laughing. In fact, he looks downright furious.
And he’s staring directly at Mariana.
The expression on his face sends a shiver through me.
I flip back to recheck the football game photo, and there it is again.
This time, Henry must be the one behind the camera because he isn’t pictured.
We’re all smiling victoriously at the camera—all but Adam, who’s looking at Mariana with something like disgust.
Or hatred. But why would Adam have hated Mariana?
And if he did, does it mean Adam had a motive to kill not only Kennedy, but Mariana too?
Something Henry said about Adam last winter pushes into my brain. He later denied it, and I forgot all about it. But it’s repeating louder in my head now than it ever sounded in real life.
Before I can fixate on those words, though, I snap to my senses, remembering where I’m standing.
I stuff the loose page back into the album and jam it back on the shelf.
Below, all is quiet. The voices from the kitchen have ceased, and I don’t hear the television coming from the living room. It’s now or never.
Heart hammering, I descend the staircase and make a mad dash for the front door.