Chapter 38
Brianne sat at the table with her hands locked together. Her breathing was fast and jagged, like she was at the start of a panic attack. She tried to speak twice, but nothing came out either time.
Gabriel sat next to her, his shoulders slumped, gaze fixed on the floor. He looked tired, but he also looked relieved, like a weight had been dragging behind him for a long time, and I’d come along and cut the chain.
I remained standing at first, watching the two of them, waiting to hear what they would say. When it became clear neither of them knew where to start, I said, “What happened to Anne?”
Brianne pressed her lips together, then shook her head.
Gabriel raised his gaze to mine. “It was me.”
Brianne jerked in her chair. “Gabriel, don’t.”
He ignored the comment and continued. “The night of the bonfire, Anne left with me.”
Brianne buried her head in her hands.
I glanced outside to check on Talia, who was still leaned against the tree, her expression telling me she was growing impatient.
Turning back to Gabriel, I said, “Will you start from the beginning?”
Gabriel swallowed, then nodded. “As you know, Anne was at the bonfire with us and several others in our friend group. We were all drinking and having a good time. Well, at first.”
“Gabriel, stop talking,” Brianne said. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do, though,” he replied. “I should have done it from the start.”
“I heard Anne was talking to you at the bonfire,” I said.
“Yes, and I’ll admit, there was some flirting between the two of us.
After things got heated and everyone started arguing, I just wanted to get out of there, but Anne didn’t want to go home yet.
She told me she was staying with her aunt, but her aunt was working a graveyard shift that night and wouldn’t be home for a while. ”
“What did you say?”
“Given how late it was, I didn’t know where to take her, so I asked if she wanted to see an old, abandoned cabin. I had seen it once before, and I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought.”
Brianne rose halfway out of her chair. “Gabriel, enough. You will not say another word until I speak to you in private.”
He glanced over at her. “We’ve had twenty-five years. Anne hasn’t.”
Brianne slammed her fist against the table. “You are going to destroy everything!”
“It’s already been destroyed.”
She sank back into her chair, shaking, and I tried to get the conversation back on track. “You were saying you took Anne to the cabin.”
He nodded.
“It was a nice night, and I thought a walk through the woods was a good idea, so I parked, grabbed my flashlight and a couple of beers, and we started walking.”
“Were the two of you drunk?”
“We’d had a few drinks, so yeah, I’d say we were both tipsy enough to be careless.”
“Careless,” Brianne repeated, as if the word disgusted her.
“Anyway, we were walking toward the cabin, and I just, I had this urge to kiss her. I took her in my arms, leaned her against a tree, and I did. And just so you know, I asked for her permission before I did it. The kiss was mutual.”
Brianne’s eyes were wide with fury, but she said nothing.
“How long did you stay there?” I asked.
“Not long, a few minutes.”
“And then you kept walking?”
He nodded. “We made it to the cabin and went in. I was telling jokes, and she was laughing and carving her initials into the wood. We walked back outside and were checking out the area around the cabin. She was about a foot in front of me, and she turned around and reached out like she wanted to take my hand. And … and she stumbled. She tripped on something. A tree root or a rock. I don’t know.
It all happened so fast. Next thing I knew, she’d fallen face first to the ground. ”
As the story unfolded, I could see it in my mind, clear and concise. He could have been leaving things out or leading me astray and telling me the version he wanted me to believe, but the story was solid, and I had no reason to believe otherwise.
“What happened after she fell?” I asked.
“There was a boulder half buried in the dirt. She hit it so hard when she went down, I heard it.”
He stared at the table, grief-stricken and filled with remorse.
“I shone my flashlight on her,” he said. “And there was blood. So much blood.”
Brianne glared at him. “Think about our daughter, Gabriel. Think about what you’re about to put her through.”
“Talia is outside,” I said, my voice low. “I asked her to allow me a few minutes to talk to you first. I thought it might be easier.”
Brianne spun toward me, wild-eyed, voice raised. “What did you say to her?”
“She knows the two of you were with Anne the night she died, but not much more than that.” I faced Gabriel. “Continue.”
“As soon as I realized what had happened to Anne, I knelt beside her,” he said. “She looked at me and tried to say something, and then she closed her eyes, and she was … she was gone.”
“And you panicked.”
Gabriel’s composure broke. “I was eighteen. I was stupid. I was terrified. I thought if I told the police, they’d make up their own story and say I raped her and then killed her.
I thought of my parents. I thought of my life ending before it even started.
I thought of everyone making me out to be some kind of monster. ”
“And that mattered more to you than the truth. Did you rape her?”
“No, of course not.”
“But you had sex.”
“We did, and before you accuse me of leaving that part out, I was just trying to get through the story first, and then I was going to circle back to the sex part.”
“What did you do when you realized she was dead?”
“I … I wrapped my shirt around her wound to get the blood to stop, then I scooped her up in my arms and took her back inside the cabin. There was a bed inside. A metal frame. The mattress was rotten. I pulled the mattress up and I slid her under the bed.”
My stomach lurched, a combination of sadness and unease. “You hid her.”
He flinched. “I didn’t think of it as hiding. I thought of it as … I don’t know. I thought I would put her there until I figured out what to do next.”
“Then what happened?”
“I went home. I washed the blood off my hands and scrubbed my body until my skin burned.”
I pictured him back then, young and terrified, choosing silence over truth. And I pictured Anne’s family, waiting for a loved one they’d never see again.
“What happened the next day?” I asked.
“I grabbed a shovel, and I went back. There was a hole beneath the bed, toward the top. The floorboards were loose in one spot. I dug it several feet deeper, and I put her in it. Then I covered it up, put some of the boards back, and I left.”
“The cabin has been torn down,” I said. “Found a few bone fragments, but nothing more. If you’re telling me the truth, it means at some point, you moved her.”
He nodded. “Years passed. I got older. I tried to forget, tried to focus on work, my marriage, our daughter, but the regret stayed with me, locked in my head, a constant reminder of what I’d done.”
Brianne’s lips trembled, but she stayed quiet.
“Several years ago, I came across a unique tree not far from our property.”
“The one shaped like a heart,” I said, “where two trees have fused to become one.”
He raised a brow. “You know?”
“I do.”
“I discovered it while I was walking along the creek. I saw it from the right angle, and it felt like a sign, like it had been put there to mock me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized Anne deserved better than having her remains beneath an old cabin. She deserved a place that wasn’t … ”
Gabriel pushed his chair back and stood, his body shaking.
“I know what I did,” he said. “And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to confess it. But I’m telling you the truth when I say I had nothing to do with Audrey’s murder. I loved that girl. I would never do anything to—”
I raised a hand, stopping him.
“After hearing your story, I know you wouldn’t. But you,” I said, turning toward Brianne. “I believe you would.”
A sharp, painful scream ripped through the room, and I looked back, seeing Talia standing several feet behind us, eyes wide as she said, “Mom?”