Chapter 30
MAX
Moonlight has faded into the soft, pre-dawn shadows of the room. I stay perfectly still, watching the soft rise and fall of Cassidy’s shoulders, the pink of her hair fanned out across my pillows like a defiant splash of color against my monochrome life.
I spot a few new scars. Not the ones I kissed last night, but jagged, angry reminders on her torso that I hadn’t noticed in the dark. I keep her tucked under my chin, hoping the warmth comforts and protects her. That she can sleep without the threat of nightmares invading her thoughts.
And, if I’m honest, having her this close is grounding me.
Waking up with Cassidy feels like a glitch in my own programming. It’s a moment of unexpected, terrifying peace. I watch her dark lashes as they fan against the soft, pale skin of her cheek, and for a fleeting second, I consider burning my schedule and staying right here.
Yet the weight of the day is already pressing in on me, churning an impending doom I’m trying hard to ignore.
“You’re staring,” she mumbles, her voice thick with sleep. She doesn’t open her eyes, but a small, sleepy smile tugs at the corner of her mouth.
“Who could blame me? Look at you.” I pepper kisses down the slope of her neck. I’m certain she can tell the rigid effect she’s having on me, but after the way our evening ended, it doesn’t feel right to push for more access to her body. Hell, especially after I was so rough with her the first time.
Cass finally cracks one blue eye open, squinting at the brightness. “Please tell me that industrial-strength coffee machine I saw in your kitchen last night isn’t just for show.”
“One coffee, coming right up.” I spring from the bed, trying to act lighter than I feel. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes, actually.” She giggles. “I’m starving.”
I let out a low huff of a laugh, the sound vibrating in the quiet room. “I think I can manage to find something in the kitchen that doesn’t involve a microwave or a delivery app. Don’t move.”
I make my way to the kitchen, the scent of fresh coffee soon fills the space as I watch the Potomac River churn hundreds of feet below the cliffs. By the time Cassidy wanders out, wrapped in one of my oversized shirts, I have two mugs waiting on the granite counter.
“Come here,” I growl, pulling her into me. “I was going to bring you your coffee, but the sight of you in my shirt is a gift that will probably keep on giving.” She looks up at me, and I waggle my brows at her. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
She shakes her head, her blonde and pink locks tumbling around her shoulders. I carefully hand her a mug, and she leans against the counter and takes a long, appreciative sip. “Who actually takes care of this massive place when you aren’t here?”
“I have a housekeeper who looks after the place, a personal chef, and a landscaping crew to manage the outdoors. Plus, a few security guys who make sure everyone on the grounds is safe.”
I try to make idle small talk as we finish our coffees, yet as the sun climbs higher, the weight of the real world begins to press in. I think about the dark web chatter rooms I’ve been scouring, and the house in Alpine waiting for me.
“I have to head to New Jersey once I get you back home,” I tell her, my voice dropping an octave. “So, I might be... off the grid for a bit.” I finish the last of my coffee and place my mug in the sink.
“For work?”
“No. Need to visit my parents. I’m way overdue.
Kept putting it off because I was so busy at work.
” I don’t tell her that crossing the threshold into Alpine turns me into a version of myself I don’t want her to see.
I just watch her finish her coffee, trying to memorize this version of us before the shadows return.
Alpine is the kind of town where the zip code is a status symbol. It’s a collection of sprawling estates perched on the Palisades, overlooking the Hudson River with a quiet, expensive dignity.
My father worked himself to the bone to ensure we lived this version of the American Dream. I grew up on these manicured lawns, playing soccer and baseball, my path to Princeton paved with the certainty of a golden future.
I had an idyllic life. Until the music stopped.
I pull the SUV into the circular drive of the large, white, three-story Colonial.
It’s a masterpiece of traditional architecture with clapboard siding, dark shutters, and a wrap-around porch that once held the echoes of late-night chats and firefly chases.
Now, it just holds an uninvited silence that will never leave.
Wreaths hang from every window, an oversized one on the front door, demonstrating how this house feels frozen in time. The air here feels stale, as if filtered through a decade of stagnant grief.
I step inside, the soles of my shoes muffled by thick Persian rugs over warm oak floors. The familiar smell of time lost hits me instantly.
“Mom?” I shout, my voice sounding too loud for the eerie silence.
I walk into the living room and stop. It’s the heat of summertime in New Jersey, but the ten-foot Christmas tree still stands in the corner, its branches sagging under the weight of glass ornaments and tinsel.
It hasn’t been taken down in years. A permanent monument to the last day our world made sense.
My father appears in the doorway of the study. He looks a decade older than he did six months ago. A shell of the man who built an empire.
“Wasn’t sure you remembered the way here,” he greets. No hug. No “how are you?” Just the stilted, hollow dialogue of the walking dead.
“Sorry. Busy with work,” I lie. It’s more of a half-truth. Because work does take up most of my time. But let’s be clear. I’ve looked for any reason to avoid coming back here.
My mother follows him, her movements slow, her eyes detached as they fix on a point somewhere over my shoulder. She looks fragile, as if a sudden breeze from the Hudson would shatter her.
“Max,” she whispers, offering a cheek that feels like cold parchment. “Did you bring her? Did Isla come with you?”
My stomach twists into a hard, cold knot. “No, Mom. Not this time.”
The blame hangs in the air of this room like a physical presence. My father hadn’t wanted Isla to go on that Caribbean cruise. He’d argued she was too young, and it was too far away. Yet Mom had encouraged her.
Enjoy yourself, Isla. Go before the coursework gets harder. Go before you’re tied to an internship.
She could have had no way of knowing she was signing my sister’s death warrant. That we’d never see her again.
The tree stands sentry over the despair residing here like an abandoned lighthouse.
I try to ignore its presence whenever I’m here.
I want to kick the fucker down and stomp the ornaments to smithereens.
It’s hard enough entering this house without that constant flashing reminder as to why it’s still standing.
“We can’t take it down yet. Her presents are still there. Where would we put the gifts?” my mother would cry. “We have to keep it up so she won’t feel like we were impatient for her and moved on until next Christmas.”
Every visit, it’s the same. With each occurrence, I’d look to my father for help. But he would’ve already turned away, retreating into the silence of his office.
So here I am, summoned to the family home without a family. Just empty, heartbroken individuals who roam lifelessly within these walls. The bond we’d shared forever broken.
I’m back in this spiral. The guilt, the grief, and the cold, hard fact that I am the only one left to carry the weight of a family that died the day my sister disappeared.
Hours upon hours I’ve spent online, looking for any trace of her. But nothing. It’s as if she vanished into thin air.
I can solve any number of cases thrown my way, but not the most important one.
Standing in the center of the living room, my eyes catch on the blue lights of the Christmas tree as they reflect in the glass of a framed photo on the mantel.
Isla is laughing in the picture, her Princeton sweatshirt tied around her waist, her eyes bright with the kind of uncomplicated future I haven’t seen in years.
It had all started with a brochure for Azure Crest Cruise Lines. Isla was a senior, glowing with the success of her early-admittance letters for grad school. She wanted one last summer of freedom with her roommates before the world got serious.
My father had paced our porch, his jaw tight. “The southern Caribbean. It’s too far, Isla. Why not wait until we can all go together?”
Isla was a daddy’s girl. She knew exactly how to tuck her head onto his shoulder and melt his resolve. “I’ll call you at every port, Dad. I’ll be back before you can even miss me.”
And she’d kept her promise. We had a flurry of photos from the first three stops. Isla with a tropical drink, Isla sunburned on a deck chair, Isla waving from a cobblestone street in Oranjestad.
Then came the stop in Curacao.
The last text my father ever got was a picture of the sunset over the pier. Then, the signal went dead. She didn’t show up for the final dinner. She wasn’t in her cabin when the ship docked in Miami.
Azure Crest security was a joke. Meeting after meeting with flustered staff members, corrupted CCTV footage, and a legal team that circled the wagons before my father could even get a flight to Florida. The official report from the Curacao authorities was a slap in the face:
No evidence of foul play. Subject likely left of her own volition or was lost at sea.
I was a graduate student at Princeton when the call came.
On top of my heartache that my beloved sister had gone missing, I had to watch my father crumble, stand by as my mother sank into a deep psychotic depression, the Christmas decorations to remain up like a permanent memorial of our trauma.
My mother was convinced that if she kept the house exactly as Isla left it, the universe would have to return her.
Yet I didn’t mourn as they did.
I hunted.