Chapter 33
I lay there on the soiled rug. I could hear voices and doors slamming, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore.
My sister was dead. My brother had killed her, and he’d also killed Alex. I had been right all along. Will had been innocent. But none of that made it hurt any less. None of it made me less numb.
The world moved in and out of my consciousness.
I heard officers enter the house. I heard them console my mother.
I heard them speak to my father. I just lay there.
Eventually someone guided me to my feet and out of the room.
They were saying my name. They were asking me questions, but I couldn’t respond.
I found myself in the back of a police car with my father, who was completely silent. My mother and Suzannah were being taken to another one. Suzannah was inconsolable. An officer said my name again. He pressed a phone to my ear. It was mine. Someone had retrieved it for me.
I heard Pullman’s voice on the other end.
“We’re at Tommy’s house,” he said firmly.
“Your brother has barricaded himself inside with the children. I understand you’ve been through a lot in the last hour, but I need you to come here, all right?
Tommy is refusing to communicate with us, and there are weapons in there. ”
“Weapons?” I asked, my first words in probably hours.
“The home has two firearms, registered to Thomas and Suzannah Dearling.” I felt even more dismay. I didn’t know Tommy and Suzannah had guns. How the fuck had that never come up?
“My colleagues are going to bring you here,” Pullman repeated.
The officer turned on the cruiser’s lights and we sped through the dirt-packed back roads toward Royal Palm Beach, where Tommy and Suzannah lived. The drive normally took ten minutes, but we made it there in five.
Their place was a starter home. A small red ranch-style set back from the road on a quiet street.
I’d never been there in person, but I’d seen countless photos and videos of it.
The street was packed with cop cars, various cities and counties scrawled across their sides.
Officers were standing all over the yard, treading on Suzannah’s perfectly planted flower gardens.
I could see several vans with sliding doors left open, cops funneling in and out of them. I stiffened when I noticed the word SWAT written across one of them. These cops were dressed like they were going to war.
This couldn’t all be for Tommy, could it? And then I remembered why we were here. What Pullman had said to me on the phone. These people were here to catch a murderer, whatever it took. I shuddered.
An officer opened the door of the car for me, taking me by the shoulder and leading me through the circus.
Detective Pullman met us halfway. “That’s close enough to the house,” he said, holding up a hand to stop us. He looked too young for this crisis situation. He was barely older than me.
“Are you all right?” he asked me, his expression full of pity. There was no way to answer him.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ve got a hostage negotiator coming,” Pullman said, gesturing at a megaphone on a folding table. “Tommy’s not answering our regular outreach.”
My mother suddenly approached and put her arms around me. It was an unfamiliar gesture. She hadn’t hugged me in years. I didn’t even care that we normally couldn’t stand each other. I let my head drop onto her shoulder, letting myself feel little again.
“I can’t believe this,” I said to her. “How can this be happening?”
“I’ve been looking into him as a suspect for days,” Pullman continued.
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about last night.
The more you insisted on Will’s innocence, the more I considered it.
It seemed glaring that no one had ever taken a close look at Tommy.
He was right there, you know? And we all suspected that whoever took Hazel must’ve been close to her.
Once you told me that Hazel had been looking into this, I realized he’d have motive to keep her quiet too.
And when I found out where he lived …” Pullman stopped. “I just needed more evidence.”
I felt blindsided. How could the cops, of all people, have been so far ahead of me on this?
I noticed the curtain flutter in the window of Tommy’s house, shortly followed by a shrill ringing: my phone. The name displayed on the front of the screen was his.
“Wait a second,” Pullman hissed. He pulled out his cell phone and turned on audio recording. “We haven’t got your carrier’s permission to record yet,” he said gruffly. “Answer and put it on speaker.”
My hand was shaking as I clicked the button, my gaze drifting up to the window. “Tommy,” I said.
“I need to talk to you alone,” he said. I could hear the kids in the background and something on the TV. “I have to explain it to you, Rosie.”
“I’m here.”
“No, in person.” Tommy didn’t sound like himself. He sounded like someone I had never met.
“I don’t think I can.”
Detective Newbury and a member of the SWAT team were by our side now. Pullman had motioned them over with a gesture of his hand.
“I’m not talking to anyone but you,” Tommy insisted.
There was silence as Pullman and Newbury exchanged a look.
“Tommy,” Newbury said, taking the phone from my hand. “This is Detective Newbury. I know you want to talk to your sister. We’re going to see if we can make that happen, okay?”
“Okay,” Tommy said after a moment.
“All right,” Newbury said easily. “That’s good, Tommy. Really good. I’m going to put us on mute. Don’t hang up.”
Tommy said, “Okay.”
“Okay, I’m muting it now.” Newbury pressed the Mute button and turned back to me.
Pullman was already shaking his head. “We cannot send her in there like this. Look at her.”
I shot him a look. I’d been through a huge ordeal. How did he expect me to look?
“How do you feel?” Newbury asked. “Could you go in? If we put you in a vest, would you feel safe doing it?”
My mother grabbed my arm. “No way. You are not sending her in there.”
“She’s the only one he’s asked to talk to,” Newbury said. Pullman tried to protest, but once he saw the expression on Newbury’s face, he fell silent.
The question took me a couple seconds to weigh in my mind.
Would I feel safe going into the house with Tommy?
I wanted to say yes, without any hesitation.
Tommy was my brother. He wouldn’t hurt me, surely.
But then I remembered how we’d gotten here, and my chest tightened in fear.
He could absolutely hurt his sister. He already had.
“I’ll go,” I said, nodding. Newbury didn’t waste a minute.
“Tommy?” he called out. “You still there, bud?” I knew Tommy would hate that.
“Yes,” Tommy said.
“Good,” Newbury replied. “Listen, we’re going to send Rose in there to talk with you, all right?”
Tommy took a deep breath. “Thank you.”
“But if we’re going to do that for you,” he added casually, “you have to do something for us, okay? We’re going to need you to send out the kids. Suzannah’s here and she wants them with her.”
“I would never hurt my kids!” Tommy shouted into the phone.
I recoiled at the fury in his tone. I couldn’t match it to the brother I knew. The violence that seemed to keep emerging from him.
“No one said you would,” Newbury clarified quickly. “But there’s a lot going on, and it would be better if they were out here. So if I send in your sister, you need to send them out, all right? We’ll do an even trade. Does that sound okay to you?”
There was a long pause. I dug my nails into the knees of my leggings.
“You promise you’re coming in, Rosie?” Tommy asked, sounding like a child himself.
I tried to pull myself together. I thought of Marta and all that media training she had forced down my throat. Deep breath. Count to three. Never let them know what you’re thinking. I had a poker face, and it was time to use it.
“Yeah, Tommy.” My voice was strong. “That’s what we’re gonna do.”
“Okay,” Tommy said again.
“That’s good, Tommy. Very good. Get ready for a knock,” Newbury said.
“Fine,” Tommy replied, and the line clicked off.