Chapter Twenty-Nine Marni
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Marni
Cam shook his head as he watched the messy Aubrey-Hanna takedown from enough of a distance to stay out of it but close enough
to still hear most of it, including all the innuendos about Patrick and the information about where Jeremy stayed last night.
“That was quite a show.”
A carefully crafted one. “Aubrey doesn’t know how to do anything but attract attention and destroy everything around her.”
His eyebrow lifted as he glanced at me. “She’s been gone for years. Still, if that’s a guess, it’s a good one.”
The stories Victoria used to tell made me dread running into Aubrey during a visit. One time Aubrey dropped whatever she was
eating and stained her shirt. Noah laughed and made fun like little brothers do. Aubrey’s personality flipped. Rage oozed
out of her. Intensified the longer she stood there, staring at Noah. I actually worried she might hit him. Then I went home
and looked up the definition of sociopath to see if it fit.
Aubrey lacked filters and empathy. She never showed fear, like when the snake in her science class mysteriously escaped its enclosure and a student panicked, which Aubrey found hysterical.
Victoria asked Aubrey if she took the lid off the terrarium.
Aubrey answered with a blank expression.
Victoria said that’s what Aubrey did when challenged.
She’d cock her head to the side, as if trying to assess what she could do before anyone came running to help.
But calculating Aubrey’s creepiness had to wait. We had bigger issues to handle. I nodded in the direction of the piece of
machinery scooping dirt out of the once pristine garden. “What did they find that made them bring in all the reinforcements?”
“No one is talking but a friend texted and said bones.”
“Bones as in more than one?” I knew about a single bone. Something small buried a few feet down. More like a piece of a bone. That’s
what brought law enforcement running from every direction. Then the heavy equipment came, and I hadn’t stopped shaking since.
Cam fully faced me now. “Does more than one matter?”
“The size might. It could be a pet.” Something less terrifying than a human body.
The waves of nausea wouldn’t stop. It felt like the ground kept shifting under me. Like the lawn spun and whirled until all
I could see was a blur of movement.
Leaning against Cam’s car wasn’t enough. I needed to sit. To inhale. Find a meditation that worked. Get further than eight
on my practiced calming countdown from ten. “We should—”
Cam straightened. “Something’s happening.”
The shouting started a second later. The forensic team quickened their pace. The detectives rallied around the tent. Everyone moved and shuffled as if waiting for the next drop of damning information.
The detective talking with Aubrey left her side. He walked to the tent, having a subordinate wait with Aubrey as he went in
for a closer look.
Cam hummed. “Yeah, it’s something.”
Breathe in for four. Hold for seven. Exhale for eight.
The calming cycle my therapist taught me. It hadn’t worked for days.
Cam’s phone buzzed. His gaze shifted to the tent. To an officer standing just outside the heavy folds. The two men made eye
contact, then Cam looked down at his cell’s screen. I leaned in, desperate not to miss the gossip buzzing across the lawn.
A body.
The words swam and merged together. I blinked, willing the news to go away.
“Someone’s buried in there.” Cam sounded grim. Resigned.
“Dea?” But I knew the answer. Dea was buried on her parents’ property in Connecticut. She wasn’t in the family mausoleum Xavier
now occupied—a fact that fueled the decades-old conspiracies about him killing her.
Patrick. Victoria. Noah. Those were the most likely answers.
“This is going to get bad.” Cam’s firm voice wavered a bit.
His worry touched off cascading waves of panic inside me. My stomach. My head. My vision. Every part of me stopped working,
locked in a rotating series of what if questions that led to a cold and empty place.
“What can they tell from bones that have been underground for more than a decade?” Nothing. I prayed the answer was not a damn thing.
“We need to get you an attorney.” He whispered, and he never whispered.
His serious tone told me all I needed to know. If the body was Patrick’s they’d find the evidence. Then I’d be arrested for
murder.