Chapter 25 Cassie
CASSIE
I sat at the island, glad the Hawks had cushy leather chairs instead of bar stools that would have required me to perch. I was tired, and I relaxed against the thick back even though I felt anything but relaxed.
I’d never told anyone about my obsession with Travis Dorsey, not even Bram.
“Food’ll be here in forty,” Jagger said, setting down his phone. He looked at me. “Want a beer?”
“Can I have a Coke or something?” I was going to need caffeine.
He opened the fridge and pulled out a Coke, popped the top, and handed it to me.
I took a long drink, then licked the syrupy sweetness from my lips. When I looked up they were all staring at my mouth.
“I think I’ll have a Coke too,” Vigo said.
“Ditto.” Jagger pulled two more Cokes from the fridge and handed one of them to Vigo.
“Grab me a beer, will you?” Hawk asked Jagger before turning back to me. “So?”
I set the Coke down and turned the cold metal can in my hand. “He’s the guy who ran my parents and Bram off the road on the mountain when I was a kid.”
“Wait a minute,” Vigo said, “is he the guy you wanted dead if you won the Hunt?”
I nodded as Jagger handed Hawk a beer.
“I thought it was an accident,” Jagger said. “That’s what everybody said, that Bram’s parents — your parents — were killed in a car accident.”
“It wasn’t an accident.” The words came out more heated than I’d intended. I took a deep breath and tried again, more calmly this time. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“You’re saying this… Travis Dorsey ran your parents off the road on purpose?” Jagger asked.
“That’s what I’m saying. And he only did six months for manslaughter.”
“Don’t they have forensics and stuff to determine how accidents happen?” Vigo asked.
“The investigation was ‘inconclusive,’” I said.
“So how do you know he did it on purpose?” Vigo asked.
“‘Inconclusive’ doesn’t mean shit.” Hawk took a swig of his beer. “Just that they didn’t have enough to make a charge stick.
I blinked, surprised to find an ally in Hawk, although ally might have been too strong a word. “Exactly.”
“What makes you think it wasn’t an accident?” Vigo asked.
“There was a witness,” I said. “A couple coming home from the overlook. They swore Travis ran right for my parents.”
“That didn’t hold up?” Jagger asked carefully.
I rubbed at the smooth surface of the gray countertop.
“The couple had been drinking. Not a lot, but enough for the DA to worry we wouldn’t get a conviction if we went to trial.
So there was a plea deal, and I was only a kid, so I didn’t have a say in any of it.
I didn’t even know about most of it until I got old enough to start digging myself. ”
“When was that?” Jagger asked.
I shrugged. “Six or seven years ago?”
Vigo lifted his eyebrows. “You’ve been investigating your parents’ accident— ”
“It wasn’t an accident.”
“Right,” he said. “You’ve been investigating your parents’ deaths since you were sixteen?”
“Somewhere around there.”
For a long moment, nobody said anything.
“You think I’m delusional,” I said.
Jagger shook his head.
“Why would someone run your parents off the road?” Hawk asked.
“I don’t know, but they were, like, into making waves.”
“What kind of waves?” Vigo asked.
“Protests and town halls and asking questions about corrupt politicians. Stuff like that.”
Jagger scratched his head. “They were independent journalists?”
I hadn’t ever thought of them that way, but after looking at all the newspaper clippings they’d kept in boxes, all the FOIA requests and financial statements marked with red pen, I could see it. “I guess.”
Maybe not back then, but that was probably what they would have been called today, like all those people who posted their findings on social media or ran a podcast or a YouTube channel.
“So you think they got into something heavy?” Vigo asked. “And that’s why this Travis Dorsey ran them off the road?”
“I can’t prove it. Their notes were all mixed up in boxes. I can’t make enough sense of them to know what they were up to.”
“I can see why the DA didn’t bring a more serious charge,” Hawk said.
I glared at him. “That’s a shitty thing to say.”
“The case was thin. Drunk witnesses— ”
“They weren’t drunk,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Witnesses who’d been drinking, no motive.”
“That we know of,” I said.
He lifted his eyebrows and I wished I could smack the skeptical look off his face.
“No motive that we know of,” I said.
“We?”
I swallowed hard. I didn’t know why I’d said that.
“No motive that I know of,” I corrected. “That the police know of.”
“Sounds like you need to let it go,” Hawk said. “Seven years is a long time to stalk someone with no proof they intentionally committed a crime.”
I pushed back so fast from the island that the chair scraped across the wood floor. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I listened,” he said. “And believe it or not, I know a lot more than you think.”
I wasn’t composed enough to even ask him what that meant. A wall of white-hot anger had descended over my field of vision, pain crushing my chest as tears stung my eyes.
“Really? You know a lot more than I think? Did you know that Bram was in the car when it went off the mountain?”
They were frozen, staring at me in shock.
“Did you know that it took twelve hours for the rescue team to find the car? That Bram was trapped inside with our dead parents, wondering if he was going to die too?” I gasped on a sob.
“Did you know he sacrificed everything to take care of me? I don’t even know what dreams he had of his own.
I don’t even know if he knows. Because the only thing that mattered to him after our parents died was taking care of me.
And I can’t even talk to him about it because he’s got so much trauma, trauma he won’t even acknowledge.
It hurts him to talk about it and I just can’t be someone who hurts him more than he’s already been hurt.
So I carry this alone, not because I want to but because I don’t have any other choice. ”
“I’m sorry,” Jagger murmured.
“Sorry doesn’t help me!” I shouted. “I’m so sick of sorry.
Do you know how many people have told me they’re sorry about what happened to Bram and my parents?
” I shook my head. “I want someone to be held accountable. I want someone to pay, like Bram paid. Like my parents paid. Like I paid.” I glared at Hawk.
“The way I see it, you’re just a bunch of hotheads who do whatever you feel like doing, who live only for yourselves.
So don’t you dare tell me to ‘let it go.’ Come back and talk to me when you give a shit about someone else.
Come back and talk to me when you lose everything.
” I hung my head, the weight of my grief just about crushing me. “When you’ve got no one.”
I hadn’t realized the truth of it until just that second. Hadn’t understood why it all felt so heavy even after all these years.
But I understood it now: I was alone.
Bram was there to make sure I kept a roof over my head, that I was safe, but there was no one I could talk to about the questions that haunted my darkest hours: what had it been like for my parents and Bram to know they were going over that cliff?
What had it been like for Bram during the twelve hours he’d been trapped with our dead parents?
“I’m going to bed.” I turned away from the Hawks, suddenly exhausted.
“The food…” Vigo spoke behind me.
“I’m not hungry.”
I just wanted to sleep. I wanted to sleep and sleep and not wake up until someone — anyone — cared even half as much as I did about what had happened to Bram and my parents.
Until someone cared what it had done to me.