Chapter 49
Thomas
Chapter Forty-Nine
I watched the guy in the theater mask step out from behind a tree trunk on the other side of the clearing. He was too tall to be Samantha, which meant it had to be her brother—Eric, or Ethan, or whatever name he went by. He was wearing the same dark hoodie he always did, and I maneuvered closer to them, feeling uneasy.
Kinsley’s back was to me, and I watched as the increasing wind blew into her brown hair. I tried to listen to whatever they were saying, but I was still too far away; I needed to get closer. It was a good thing I was wearing a dark sweatshirt; it made it easier to become one with the forest’s shadows. I stalked closer, trying my hardest not to make any noise, but it was hard, as the ground was buried in pine needles, which scrunched under my shoes.
“Why did you want us gone?” Kinsley asked, and the guy snickered under the mask, pulling the hoodie off his head. The first thing I saw was the blondish hair, and when he took off his mask, too, recognition hit me.
He was the guy working in the camera shop.
“I had no interest in you.” He shrugged. “At first, of course. Then with every protest you made to stay, you became more and more appealing to me. My revenge to hurt my father changed from wanting to kill him to wanting to kill you.” I creased my brows.
Hurt his father? The dead one?
“Your father?” Kinsley asked with the same confusion in her voice I felt.
“Joshua Rhodes,” the guy replied, and my body went rigid. “I think you have met him.”
The forest stilled as all of us stayed quiet for a moment.
“You think Josh is your father?” Kinsley asked, and I bumped my forehead against the tree’s trunk. That’s why they had that picture of him.
When I turned my attention back to the clearing, I saw the guy pull something out from behind his back. My stomach dropped when I realized he was holding a gun in his left hand.
Fuck.
I heard Kinsley’s nervous chuckle through the wind.
“You should have done your research,” she said, and I pressed my lips into a hard line. Fuck, she will get herself shot. “Before, what? You started to plan a whole homicide?” Her tone flattened, and the guy growled at her.
“Stupid bitch,” he spat, and when I saw his finger falter above the gun, I moved.
I yanked Kinsley backward, and she shrieked in surprise.
“You move in her way ever again and I break your skull,” I gritted, and Ethan raised his brows, a smile forming on his ugly face.
“The golden boy,” he said to me, and I flinched. “I read about you. Hockey team captain, accepted into Yale Law School, and the future inheritor of Daddy’s empire.”
“Leave. Now,” I muttered to Kinsley, but she shook her head, giving me a hard look.
I was about to argue with her when Ethan cleared his throat.
“I have the gun,” he said, letting go of Cora, who almost face-planted into the ground. “That means I’m the one talking.” Kinsley and I shared a look.
“Let’s make a deal,” I bargained with a grimace, and he lifted his brows at me. “You tell your part of the story, and then we tell ours.”
He snorted. “Tell you what. I will tell you what happened with your mother, and then I will decide whether I kill you first or let you talk,” he said, and I glanced back to Kinsley. Her eyes flickered toward me, too, and we didn’t need to use any words to understand each other.
“All right, but be quick about it.” I stretched my neck. “We have a firework show to catch.”
Ethan Bowman growled, and from the corner of my eye, I saw the blonde girl back away into the forest. At least she was smart enough to do that.
“I grew up on my mother’s stories about my father,” Ethan started, and I felt Kinsley shift closer to me. “But whenever I asked her where he was, she didn’t answer,” he explained while playing with the gun in his hand. “I was around…six years old when she first showed me a picture of him. He had another family, of course.” He nodded toward me, and I lifted a brow. “From that moment, my mother’s stories became less about that man and more about the family who stole him from us.”
I could barely keep in a snort, but in a weird way it all made sense. Aaliyah’s sister mentioned something about Heather Jones being diagnosed with delusional disorder. Maybe her husband’s death triggered it. She was left alone with their two children. Maybe she thought it wasn’t fair. Isn’t that what everyone thinks? She could have met my parents when we were in town. Ethan said he was around six years old when her mother’s stories changed, and I was four when we first came to Coldwater for a holiday.
“Is that why you sent that letter to Josh?” I asked, and he dipped his head.
“I thought the idea of getting to know what really happened to his precious wife would lure him back here.” He shrugged. “I guess he didn’t care about her either.” I clenched the muscle in my jaw. “As I said the first time, when I realized it wasn’t Joshua who came back, I was pretty mad. That’s when I asked the Hale girl to keep an eye out on you.”
“You didn’t ask her,” Kinsley bit in, stepping out from behind my back. “You blackmailed her.”
Ethan grinned. “I never said I asked her nicely.” Kinsley clenched her fists. “That reminds me,” he waved the gun in our direction, “you still owe me a good time.” He pointed it at Kinsley, who widened her eyes, and my right eye twitched. “Remember in the forest? Your first night here—I was so close to getting to you, but I wanted to scare you a bit beforehand, and that’s when golden boy here interrupted.” My stomach dropped.
There was no fucking way he had just said this.
“You fucker.” I snarled, moving toward him, and he raised the gun to my forehead.
“I could just kill you and then fuck her right now, you know. Pew.” He mimicked the sound of the gun, a grin spreading across his face. “I thought about it a lot,” he added, and I clenched my jaw. “Next to that tree, maybe?—”
My hand moved faster than he could react, and it connected with his jaw. I heard Kinsley shriek. “You touch her.” I leaned down as he spit blood onto the ground. “Or just think about touching her, and I will snap your fucking neck,” I rasped, and he chuckled.
I was about to reach for his gun before he could straighten up, when we heard another safety release. I looked up from Ethan to see Samantha staring back at me.
Ethan glanced backward, too, and let out a laugh. “Sister, it’s nice of you to join us,” he said, and Samantha flinched. “A family reunion. Well almost. Where is Goldilocks?”
I kept my eyes on Samantha. Was she crazed, too, like the rest of her family, even though she wasn’t the one helping Ethan?
“Come on, sis, help me out here,” he said, and Samantha snorted.
“Put the gun down, Eric,” she replied, and to my surprise, she lowered the gun from my direction to her brother’s. “It’s over,” she added.
“It’s over when I say so,” her brother replied, the white of his eyes red. “You should know that.”
Samantha winced. “Mom didn’t know what she was talking about, Eric. They—” she pointed at us. “Are not our family,” she added. “Put the gun down.”
When Ethan didn’t move, she stepped closer, her fingertips whitening.
“I said drop it, Eric.” She snarled, and her brother did. “Stand up,” she ordered next and waited until Ethan straightened.
“You are a disgrace to the Jones name,” he growled, and Samantha’s eyes flickered toward me.
“Braxton showed me an article about the Bowman family.” She addressed her words toward me and Kinsley.
So, she knew. She had to have recognized her mother.
“What are you talking about?” Ethan asked, and Samantha turned back to him.
“I don’t know why mom changed our last names or why she never talked about our real dad, but he was a fireman. He died the year I was born,” she explained to her brother before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a familiar hospital picture. “Look,” she said. “That’s you and Mom,” she added, showing it to Ethan. “And that’s our dad.” She must have pointed at Philip Bowman before sending us an apologetic look.
Did she know all along?
“You are full of crap, Sam,” Ethan replied, his hands shaking. “Joshua Rhodes is our father, Mom told us.”
“I’m not, Eric,” she tried again. “And he’s not. I looked into it, and look, you have to recognize her.”
“Shut the fuck up, Samantha!” her brother shouted, and Samantha’s eyes widened.
She took a deep breath. “Okay. Then just tell us what Mom did to theirs.”
Her brother smiled. “I was about to get to that,” he said, and Samantha pressed her lips into a thin line.
This was it. It wasn’t an is she alive or not question anymore as it was when we arrived. I had no doubt that she wasn’t. I wanted to know the reasons. My body tensed as he opened his mouth, and I felt Kinsley move closer to me, but in the next moment, he leaned down for the gun and held it up at his sister.
I heard footsteps and branches breaking, and when I looked around, I saw our friends appear at the edge of the clearing, locking us into a wide circle. Right on time. Ethan turned around, too, with a snarl.
“I can shoot all of you!” he shouted, his voice echoing through the forest, and I heard Braxton laugh in response.
He was holding up his phone in front of him, and I hoped he was on live, as we agreed.
“You could try,” I rasped. “But either way, in five minutes or so, you will be in a police car on your way to your new home.” I raised a challenging brow.
“Thomas,” Kinsley warned, but my eyes stayed fixated on the guy.
“My dad is on the way, Eric!” Kevin yelled from where he was standing. “Just tell us what happened, and maybe you can try to outrun him.”
“This was not the fucking plan,” Ethan muttered under his nose.
“If you don’t want to tell us, we can tell our own version of the events,” Kinsley cut in impatiently, and I nodded my head in agreement.
She opened her mouth with a big inhale, and Ethan snapped.
“Do you really want to know what happened?” he shouted. “What happened is that your mother was a bitch.” I took a threatening step closer, and he moved the gun in defense.
“I don’t care if you are holding a gun or not,” I spat, flexing my hands at my sides. “I can shut you up either way.”
He growled at me before taking a deep breath.
“Where was I…oh yes. Everything began at a stupid party we were invited to. You were in a summer camp.” He pointed at Samantha, whose hands trembled around the gun. “There was an argument there, and then—” He tapped his head with his gun, thinking, and I pulled Kinsley closer to me. “We went to the Sunnyside, your mother was there. They argued about some notes, and then talked about Dad, and then your mother left. She wasn’t supposed to, but she came back to the flower shop later. Mom told me she wasn’t supposed to come, but there she was. She tried to play it off like nothing had happened, and that made my mom mad. Mad. Angry. Very angry. When your mother turned away to choose a flower, mine grabbed the closest shovel and…” A smile crawled to his face and my stomach turned. “Bang,” he said, turning his eyes toward the tops of the trees. Bang. Bang. Bang. He mouthed. “Until she didn’t move.”
I felt the vomit crawl its way into my throat, and I swallowed hard. Kinsley shifted closer, resting her hand on my back, and I tried to relax into her touch to ground myself.
“She killed her?” Samantha choked. “Just like that?”
“That’s not all.” Ethan grinned, and I narrowed my eyes.
“You are sick,” Braxton spat from somewhere behind me, and I glanced back, searching for my brother.
To my surprise I found him on my other side, his cheeks flushed and his eyes red with a distant look on his face.
“I was there with her if that wasn’t obvious, and I helped her put your mother’s body into a soil bag. Then?—”
“She’s in the flower bed around the gazebo,” Kinsley muttered, and I furrowed my brows.
“What?” Samantha and I asked in unison, the same disturbed expression playing on our faces.
Kinsley looked up and moved her eyes between us.
“She’s under the flower bed around the gazebo,” she repeated, louder this time. “The one you take care of, even though you don’t like flowers,” she added to Samantha, whose eyes went wide. “She asked you, didn’t she? Before she died. She must have been scared that if it was to become unkept, they would tear it down and then they would discover Lizzie’s body.” My stomach turned.
The town square, the gazebo, I drove past all these places at least a hundred times just this week. She was there, lying under the flowers for twelve years. Twelve fucking years. She never left the town. She was always there. Watching, waiting, decomposing until all that was left were bones.
“You are a smart one, aren’t you?” Ethan smiled, and Kinsley grimaced. “The easiest part was finding eyewitnesses to stop the investigation. Those dumb tourists didn’t even ask for that much money to say they saw her leave on the morning bus.”
“And what about the flower?” I asked, holding harder onto Kinsley while seeing the purple plant in front of my mind’s eye.
“Flower?” Ethan asked, and I blinked. “What flower?” he repeated, but when I didn’t react, he raised his gun at me again. “What flower?” he shouted, his hands shaking as he focused the gun to my forehead, and I saw his finger twitch before I heard the gunshot.