Chapter Thirty-five
Lake
There wasn’t enough light in the car park.
It was a stupid thought. No car park in the world used floodlights, but it didn’t stop me wishing for them.
There were too many dark spaces that the light didn’t penetrate.
It meant he was probably watching us. How pissed would he be that Baxter hadn’t come alone?
I turned in a slow circle, scouring every corner.
Nothing.
The look of slight concentration on Baxter’s face said he was relying on a different sense than sight—one I didn’t possess. “Anything?” I whispered.
He shook his head as he walked forward a few steps, the slight stiffness in his shoulders giving away his nervousness even as he tried to look anything but.
I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to be naked in bed with Baxter, stroking his face and whispering sweet nothings in his ear.
I wanted to tell him that despite us only being together for such a short time that I loved him.
Because I did; there was no denying it. I wouldn’t be here at stupid o’clock in the morning if I didn’t.
Maybe it wasn’t too late to tell him. I opened my mouth, intending to lay my feelings at his feet.
“OWEN,” Baxter shouted, the volume of his voice and the echo it caused making me cringe. “I’m here. Just like you wanted. So the least you could do is show yourself.”
The silence that followed was thick and suffocating, pressing in on me until it felt louder than any sound.
“Fine,” Baxter said into the stillness of the car park.
“You’re wasting my time, so I’m going to leave.
I guess the only talking you can do is with a knife.
And you couldn’t even do that face to face.
You had to stab me in the back.” He took a step toward the car, already reaching for the door he hadn’t locked.
A footstep sounded from behind us.
I spun around; Baxter turned more slowly.
Another footstep.
He was on the other side of the car park, a good fifteen meters away, which left nothing but a dark figure to be seen.
“Are you just going to stand over there?” Baxter taunted. “Come closer. Let me see you. It’s like the phone calls, isn’t it? You’ll call, but you don’t have the balls to actually say anything.”
“Maybe this isn’t the way to—” I didn’t get any further. Baxter was on too much of a roll.
“What’s wrong?” he continued. “Are you scared?”
The figure started forward, one deliberate step at a time.
Slow. Unhurried. Like he had all the time in the world.
His head was down, making it impossible to see his face.
He disappeared behind a column for a moment, the primal part of my brain screaming that he was going to pull some sort of trick, but then he reappeared on the other side of it.
He paused halfway across the space, choosing a point in front of the light. He lifted his head and his hands at the same time, fingers splayed. “No weapon.”
His voice was jarringly similar to Baxter’s.
It made it easy to picture how Jamie had been fooled into letting him in.
All it would have taken was a slight obscuring of his face—poor light, a hood up, his head turned away.
With none of those things in play, it was impossible not to catalogue all the similarities and differences between him and Baxter.
Same height. Owen’s waistline was a little thicker than Baxter’s, with the gradual weight gain that happened to most of us over the years unless you obsessively hit the gym.
His hair was shorter, which did away with the curl. It made me realize how much I loved the tousled nature of Baxter’s hair. The tickle against my nose when I buried my face in it after sex. The feel beneath my fingers when we kissed, and I cupped his scalp.
In contrast to his waistline, Owen’s face was thinner and more drawn, in a way I instinctively knew had nothing to do with his advancing years and everything to do with the life he’d led.
The kind where he’d murdered his own twin brother and then had to live with that.
Plus, whatever had happened to him prior that had placed him on such a destructive path.
Baxter would never look like this.
Despite everything he’d endured, Baxter smiled too much. He had too many friends, even if he claimed they were no such thing. He saw too much good in the world.
“Hello, Owen.” There was no tremor in Baxter’s voice. “It’s good to meet you at last. Properly, I mean. Without me lying on the floor, dying.”
Owen tipped his head to one side and studied his brother, giving the impression he was looking for chinks in his armor.
A flicker of disappointment appeared before he masked it.
He’d obviously expected the choice of venue to trigger Baxter, which it would have done if we hadn’t already been here, done that, and got the T-shirt.
His gaze moved to me, the stare assessing. That was another difference between them. No matter what emotion Baxter might exhibit, whether it be amusement or fear, it was always there. Whereas Owen was a blank slate.
“I see you’ve brought a friend,” Owen said. “I assume you think two against one is wise after what happened before.”
“I insisted on coming,” I said, not wanting to take anything away from Baxter’s tough stance.
“How sweet,” Owen replied. “And how uncharacteristic of a man who teaches history and writes books. What would your sister make of you being here, Lake Larson? Her name’s Verity, right?”
The intention to put me on the back foot was obvious, so all I did was stare back at him. Yes, it was discomfiting to know he knew so much about me, but I wasn’t about to show weakness and let him see that.
He turned his attention to Baxter. “Brave of you to bring a friend. I hear some of your friends aren’t doing so well.”
“Is that a threat?” Baxter asked.
“More of an observation. How is Jamie?”
“A lot less dead than you intended him to be,” I said. “That must have pissed you off. I assume you were hoping to stay incognito a little longer.”
Owen shrugged. “Now. Later. It’s all the same to me.”
He came forward a few more steps. Every fiber of my being wanted to step back and keep that same distance between us, but I refused to give in to it and held my ground. Baxter did the same.
“Are you recording me?” Owen asked when he was only a couple of meters away.
Baxter shook his head. “This isn’t about the law. It’s about you and me. About why you did what you did, and why, even years later, you can’t let this hatred for me go.”
“Hatred,” Owen said, as though it were an amusing concept.
“You said you hated me,” Baxter pointed out. “That day when I was shopping, and you followed me. I heard it as clear as day, and you wanted me to hear it.”
Owen said nothing, but a muscle ticked in his cheek.
He walked over to a spot on the concrete and stared down at it.
I knew from our previous visit that it was where Baxter had lain after Owen had stabbed him.
“You’d think,” Owen said with zero emotion, “that there would be something to show for it, wouldn’t you? A stain. Something.”
Baxter swallowed. His composure held, but it clearly took effort. “I don’t think the council is big on commemorative bloodstains.”
Owen continued to stare at the patch of concrete.
Seconds passed. Long, drawn-out ones where no one moved a muscle. “I don’t understand how you’re here,” he finally said. “How did you come back?”
“I’m not answering your questions until you answer mine,” Baxter said.
Owen’s slow nod said that made sense. “Not here.”
“Where?” I demanded, frowning.
He jerked his head toward the stairwell. “On the roof. The fresh air gives me a clearer head. Helps me think better.”
“No,” I said before Baxter could speak. “Here is fine. Tell us why you did it. Why you thought the solution to finding out you had a twin brother was to take him out of the equation without ever having a single conversation with him? None of this was his fault. He was a baby, just like you were. He couldn’t have stopped you from being taken from the hospital.
If you were going to go after anyone, it should have been your parents—and even that is tenuous, unless you expected them to keep a constant vigil over you.
What happened to you was shit. No one’s denying that, but it’s not, nor has it ever been Baxter’s fault.
If anything, he suffered as well. He should have had a twin brother to grow up with. ”
“Lake…” The note of warning in Baxter’s voice told me to rein in my frustration.
“He talks a lot, your man, doesn’t he? Would you like me to put a pillow over his head?”
“Not funny,” Baxter ground out.
“The roof,” Owen said again.
“The roof,” Baxter agreed.
I swore under my breath, but neither man was listening.
Owen swept an arm out in front of him, his gaze laser-focused on his brother. “After you.”
Apparently, that courtesy didn’t extend to me. Owen fell into step behind Baxter as soon as he headed for the stairwell.
I didn’t mind. In fact, I welcomed it.
Someone needed to keep an eye on him, and I couldn’t do that if we were both in front of him.
He’d already stabbed his brother in the back once.
There was no reason to believe he wouldn’t do it again.
With that in mind, I watched his hands, ready to react if one even looked like it might delve into his pocket or slide beneath his jacket.
I breathed easier when they didn’t, remaining loose at his sides.
Baxter kept glancing back, but Owen left a good few meters between them and didn’t close the gap. If he wanted to hurt Baxter, it was clear he wanted to talk first. Just as Baxter had surmised.
The heavy fire door at the bottom of the stairwell was closed. Baxter gave one last backward glance before pushing it open and stepping through.
As soon as he disappeared, Owen sped up. Did he think Baxter was going to vanish? Where did he think he could go? The stairs didn’t lead anywhere except to the roof.
I hurried after him, not willing to let him out of my sight—but I wasn’t fast enough.
The door swung shut.
I shoved at it, but it slammed shut with a strange metallic sound. A hard, ugly sound. Not a lock. Something worse.
When I hit the push bar, it opened a millimeter but no more. “What―?” I slammed my shoulder into it, the impact reverberating through my bones. It made no difference, apart from dust shaking loose from the frame.
I wasn’t ready to give in. Not with me on one side of the door and Baxter on the other.
Grabbing the push bar, I threw my weight against it. The bar inside scraped and settled, as if it was getting comfortable, but the door still didn’t open. I rammed it once more, pain flashing through my shoulder.
The door held. Solid. Patient. Built for heat and smoke, and things far more powerful than me.
“Open it!” I shouted, hating how desperate I sounded.
No answer.
“Baxter!”
Still nothing.
I kicked the door. Not one of my better ideas. My foot screamed in pain, while the door didn’t even pretend to care. I stepped back, breathing hard, staring at it as if it might change its mind.
It didn’t.
That was when the truth landed.
Owen had planned this. Whatever he’d jammed in the door, he had left there for this exact eventuality. He’d considered Baxter not coming alone—and he’d come up with a solution to fix that.
And we’d made it easy for him. Or at least Baxter had. I’d made my feelings about going to the roof crystal clear.
I pressed the push bar one last time, testing its resistance, feeling how absolute it was. I wasn’t getting through that door without tools.
And Owen had known that.