Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
COOPER
The words sank in slowly. Water struggling down a clogged drain.
My heartbeats were in my ears, in my throat. The hollow beats echoed all around me, pounding in my head, making me spin out. They weren’t the words I’d been expecting to hear. I’d considered hundreds of scenarios, some twisted, some absurd—but not this.
Never this.
I managed to find my tongue. “I don’t understand. No one has that kind of power,” I said, my mouth dry, thoughts scattered, balance off-kilter.
Ryan was distraught. He began to sweat as he brushed his hair back from his forehead. “Cecily Stone did. She had the original accident report altered. She said it would ruin Abby’s life. Her future.”
“Abby never told me about any of this.” I rubbed both palms over my face. I’d had bombshells dropped on me before, but this one would be hard as hell to top.
“No, she wouldn’t have,” Ryan replied, staring off across the room. “She doesn’t remember.”
“What?” Bomb number two was hurled at me, ricocheting off my skin and leaving me breathless. “How is any of this possible?” I demanded.
“God, it’s all a fucking mess,” Ryan muttered breathlessly.
He fisted his hair, his cheeks turning pink and his eyes wild.
“Abigail was in a coma for two weeks. When she woke up, she didn’t remember the accident.
The doctors said it was post-traumatic amnesia, but I don’t think anyone expected her to forget… forever.”
“Weren’t there witnesses?” I pressed.
Ryan set his jaw as he regarded me. “I’m sure she paid off the officers at the scene, just like she paid me off.
She handed me a fat check, told me to leave town, and made me promise that I would never tell Abigail the truth.
” He walked over to the opposite wall and punched it.
His chest was heaving, his body rigid. He stared at his tattered knuckles, lost in a moment; lost in another life.
“I resented my grandmother for choosing my sister over me. I resented Abigail for killing our parents. I resented myself for letting that woman buy my silence and for being such a goddamn coward. I resented the whole fucking world.”
I listened and absorbed and processed, floundering for something to say. When my mind finally clicked back on, I wondered hesitantly, “Was it…an accident?”
I couldn’t fathom the possibility that Abby had been drinking or under the influence of something. It was too fucking much.
“No one knows what really happened that night, but I know my sister was clean and clear-headed when she left the house,” Ryan said. “But my parents are dead, Abby has no memory of the incident, and who the hell knows what my grandmother covered up?”
I padded around the coffee table as I pieced the puzzle together. There was one more piece I needed to fit, so I reverted back to my original question. “Who is Christopher Larkin?”
Ryan paled again.
He fidgeted with his tie and tapped his shiny shoe against the floor. His eyes darted away from me as he said on a cracked breath, “There was another vehicle involved.”
Bomb number three.
Tick, tick, fucking boom.
I felt the debris slice right through me, cutting me deep, making me bleed out.
This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real.
Driven by an impulsive surge of anger, I marched over to Ryan without a moment’s thought. My fury burned, fueled by the realization that he’d allowed all of us to become entangled in a web of lies and deceit.
I snatched him by the tie and tugged him toward him, snarling in his face. “Who is Christopher Larkin?” I punctuated each word with menace.
I needed to know, needed to hear it.
“He was the other driver!” Ryan pushed himself free, stumbling backward with his head in his hands. Emotion seized him and he threw his arms in the air. “But, Jesus Christ, this was twelve years ago—I never connected the two events. I couldn’t possibly.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, reeling in my anger and trying to calm the fuck down.
It was true that this had happened a long damn time ago. If Larkin were indeed Abby’s captor, why would he wait over a decade to seek revenge? What would make him snap so violently?
What triggered him?
“Wait here,” Ryan said, breaking through my addled thoughts.
Ryan disappeared up the winding staircase as I made my way back to the sofa, collapsing onto the cushions with a winded breath.
Abby.
She didn’t know. She didn’t know the truth about her parents’ deaths, and holy hell, it would destroy her. As wretched as this coverup was—as repulsive and unforgivable as it was—there was a small, aching part of me that understood why Cecily Stone had done what she’d done.
If that woman had loved Abigail like I loved her, I fucking understood.
Ryan returned with a box in his hands. He dropped it down on the coffee table, rattling the glass surface.
“This is my grandmother’s. I like to call it her box of secrets.
It has everything in here pertaining to the accident—Abby’s medical records, news articles, bank statements.
” Sighing, he reached inside the box and pulled out a manilla folder.
Ryan flipped through the loose slips of paper and settled on a black-and-white photograph. “This is Larkin. Is he your guy?”
I took the image from Ryan’s hand.
And my blood chilled.
My muscles stiffened, my tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth. The man in the photo was younger with less wrinkles and scruff, and with far less sorrow in his eyes, but there was no doubt in my mind that this was The Withered Man.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Ryan croaked out. “He’s the one who hurt my sister?”
I swallowed, nodding as this sinister puzzle found its final piece. “Yeah…it’s him.”
But, while the pieces were connected, the puzzle was far from complete. I still had so many questions, so many whys.
A sudden look washed over Ryan’s face as he gripped the box. He glanced at me with a flash of worry. With fear. “That guy you were talking to on the phone…he said Larkin hit one of your men? That means he’s in Wisconsin?”
I blinked.
I blanched.
Oh. Shit.
My stomach sank as my world came crashing down. I’d been so wrapped up in solving this mystery, so obsessed with connecting the dots, I’d failed to connect the biggest dot of all.
The hit-and-run.
Ashland.
Larkin was only twenty minutes away from Crow’s Peak.
From Abby.
I began to spiral as I leaped from the couch, my insides wrenching with unparalleled dread.
I felt sick, dizzy. Desperate.
Ryan noted my reaction, and the two of us locked eyes.
He knew what I was thinking.
“Abigail,” Ryan said.
It was a whisper; a command.
Run.
I didn’t know when my feet started to move.
I was out the door and racing down the steps two at a time, fumbling with my phone. Everything was whirling by in slow motion as I jumped into the car and dialed Abby’s number.
Ring, ring, ring.
Voicemail.
Again and again.
I gunned it out of the neighborhood, my lights and sirens blaring, driving as fast as I could. I tried calling James. Tried calling Kate.
No answer.
No answer.
I wasn’t with her, wasn’t there, couldn’t protect her.
I pressed my foot against the accelerator, as if I could somehow get there in time. I was four-hundred goddamn miles away.
I’d never felt more helpless.
Breaking every speed limit law, I called Chief Reynolds as I gripped the steering wheel and sped off into a dire unknown.
“I need you at Seventeen Bluebird Trail,” I commanded, voice cracking. “Now.”
Abby
“Chug-a-lug,” Kate said, clinking her glass with mine as we sat on the living room couch.
I brought the rim of the flute to my lips, my eyes gleaming back at Kate. “I feel like this is becoming a thing with us. Alcohol. All the time.” I scrunched up my nose as I took a sip, grimacing when the liquid slid down my throat. “Gross. I thought you made me a mimosa.”
“I did.” Kate shrugged. “With vodka.”
“Ugh. So, you made me a Screwdriver. At ten-thirty in the morning.”
Kate took a healthy swallow of her own cocktail, pulling her legs up beside her on the sofa. “Hey, McDonald’s starts serving lunch at ten-thirty. That’s what I go by.” She grinned, wiggling her eyebrows. “Besides, you’re stressed to the max. You need something to take the edge off.”
Instinctively, I checked my phone.
No new updates yet.
Then I smiled dreamily at the last text message I’d received from Cooper:
I miss you, too.
“Okay, enough of this.” Kate snatched the phone out of my hands and set it down on the side table.
“Your heart is, like, palpitating right now. Less lovey-dovey shit and more drinking. Cheers.” She tipped her glass toward me and took another sip.
I sighed. “You’re ruining my honeymoon phase.”
Kate studied me, her eyes squinting thoughtfully, then twirled the stem of her glass between her fingers. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Like him? Understatement of the year.
My school-girl grin could not be tamed, so I ducked my head to hide it. “Yeah…something like that.”
“Wait.” Kate straightened, setting down her drink and scooting closer. “I know that look. I freakin’ know that look.”
“My look of perpetual irritation? That’s just my face.”
“Not that one.” She jabbed her finger at me, circling my nose. “That one. The one that’s screaming, ‘Hey, look at me, I had sex with Kate’s brother and didn’t bother to mention it.’”
My cheeks burned in remembrance.
Kate pressed on. “Now your look has morphed into, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about that time I had sex with Kate’s brother but didn’t bother to mention it.’”
“Okay, okay. Stop…analyzing me.” I chugged down the rest of my cocktail and tried not to gag. “Fine, if you must know, we may have acted upon our feelings.”
“Lame as hell response.”
“I’m trying to save you from a slew of disturbing mental images here.”
She made a face of disgust. “Trust me. The last thing I’m thinking about is my brother naked. God. Eww.”
I giggled. I was definitely thinking about Kate’s brother naked.