Chapter Twenty-One
Magnolia
Vance was gone for hours. I was in the kitchen when he got back, putting together a simple dinner of spaghetti with meat sauce, figuring he could reheat it when he turned up.
He came through the front door wearing the same jeans and a different shirt, his hair wet from a recent shower. He'd either gone for another run or worked out.
I didn't ask. His eyes were shuttered, his jaw stiff. I didn't want to push. Instead, I said, "Hungry? Dinner’s almost ready."
"Yeah, starved. Do you want me to take the dog out?" I looked at Scout, whose head had popped up from his paws when Vance walked in the room. "Sure, it's been a while and he needs to get a little exercise."
Vance disappeared through the back door, Scout trotting behind him. I watched them for a few minutes as I stirred the sauce.
Vance threw the ball again and again, patient, not minding the slobber or the way Scout would drop it just a few feet away, never into his hand. I always thought Scout had the idea his humans should run for the ball, too.
I was plating dinner when they came back in. For the first time, we ate in the kitchen sitting room with the television on, barely speaking.
Vance was locked up tight, and I had no idea what to say to break him free. I didn't even know if I should try.
Seeing that picture earlier, the violent end of his parents’ lives, I couldn't imagine how hard it must have been. We went to bed early. I tucked Rosie in, and by the time I was finished changing and feeding her, Vance was asleep.
I stood at the side of the bed watching him, his mouth tight even as he slept, creases at the corners of his eyes.
He should've looked restful. It made me nervous to see him under this much strain. He hadn't had a drink in over a year. But, I knew it wasn't that simple. And losing his family was at the root of the demons that had driven him to alcohol in the first place.
It was a triumph that, when faced with that picture, he went for a workout instead of to a bar.
It couldn't have been easy. None of this was easy. I just wished I knew how to help. I climbed in bed beside him, rolling my body into his and draping my arm across his chest.
In his sleep, he held me close. Fingers tangled in my hair, he let out a sigh. I drifted off, lulled by the beat of his heart, holding him as if my touch could heal him while he slept.
I jolted awake in the dark of night and froze, not sure what had pulled me from sleep.
Rosie?
There was no sound from the sitting room. The bed jerked beside me, the mattress shaking as the headboard smacked the wall.
Vance. Vance had woken me.
I sat up, pushing my hair out of my eyes. The moon was full, bathing the room in translucent light, just enough to show me Vance's wet cheeks, the sight of his mouth open in a soundless cry.
His breath came in pants, and his legs shifted restlessly beneath the sheets. He made a sound of agony, low and guttural, that was almost a word.
"Vance. Vance, wake up." I framed his face with my palms, running my thumbs over his cheekbones to wipe away the tears.
Asleep, trapped in his nightmare, he looked young and defenseless. He made another sound, a moaning protest, but I couldn't decipher the words.
Whatever he was saying, only he could hear it. I sat up and pulled his head and one shoulder into my lap, stroking my fingers through his hair, scratching my nails against his scalp, making soothing sounds and saying, "Vance, wake up. It's okay. Wake up."
His restless movements calmed as I stroked his head, the tears on his cheeks drying under my touch. "Baby, please," I whispered.
I didn't want him to drift back into sleep. I wanted him to wake up, to see his eyes clear of the nightmare, for him to know he was safe and loved.
When his breathing calmed, I shifted to the side, lifting his head out of my lap and sliding down to lie beside him, twining my legs with his and pulling him into my arms, trying to surround him with comfort and affection.
Finally, he let out a long breath and his eyes opened.
"Vance, you awake?" He nodded, raising one hand and brushing his palm across his eyes.
"You had a bad dream," I said. "Do you remember what it was?"
Knowing Vance, he probably didn't want to talk about it. I didn't want to push, but I was afraid to let the nightmare fester inside him. He nodded again.
"Will you tell me?" I asked gently, expecting him to deny me.
"I was there," he said. At first, I didn't understand. Then, thinking of the picture, I was terribly afraid that I did.
"When? Not when it happened," I said, positive he hadn’t seen his parents murdered. I knew, everyone knew, that the police had ruled their deaths a murder-suicide, but many believed the real killer was still out there. If Vance had seen them die, the truth wouldn't be a secret.
"Right after," he said, his voice so low I could barely hear him, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, seeing something other than white plaster.
"We were supposed to be at Aunt Olivia and Uncle Hugh's house for a sleepover. Annalise was with Charlie and Aunt Olivia. Charlie was just a baby. Tate and Holden were only five. Annalise liked helping with them. Aiden was at a friend’s house.
Maybe if he'd been home, he would've kept the rest of us out of trouble.
Aiden's always had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. "
Vance fell silent.
"He kept you guys out of trouble?" I prompted.
Vance let out a humorless laugh. "Most of the time.
But some of the worst shit we did was his idea.
That night, we were bored, couldn't sleep.
It was spring break, just getting warm out.
Uncle Hugh wasn't home, at the club I think, and Aunt Olivia had stayed home because Charlie wasn't feeling well and she didn't want to leave her with the nanny.
Not with all the kids staying at their house.
"My mom and dad weren't even supposed to be home. Gage and Jacob and I wanted to play Sega, but the cartridge we needed was at my house. I was the youngest, and Gage and Jacob dared me to go home and get it by myself."
"In the dark?" I asked. "How far away was your house?"
"It was close. Less than a quarter-mile through the trees.
I didn't have to leave the estate. It was dark and the woods were kind of creepy, but there was no way I was going to tell Gage and Jacob I was chicken.
Not when I'd been bragging that I could crush them at Rayman.
I ran the whole way. Something spooked me, probably just a bird or my imagination, and I booked it down the path.
“When I saw the lights of the house through the trees, I was relieved. It didn’t occur to me that it should have been dark.
My parents were supposed to be at the club with Uncle Hugh.
They always turned the lights off when they left.
But the whole house was lit up, and the door to my dad's office was wide open.
I was afraid I was going to get in trouble, but it was so quiet, I decided no one was home.
I went to turn off the lights in my dad's office and I saw them. "
"Oh God, Vance. I'm so sorry."
Tears leaked from my eyes. I wrapped my arm tighter around his chest and squeezed, wishing I could take the memory from him.
He'd only been eight or nine. A little boy.
I'd found my grandmother, and the sight of her dead body, looking like she was asleep in her bed, had torn my heart out, but I'd been an adult and she'd been in her eighties.
His parents’ bodies, the bullet wounds and the blood—Vance never should have seen any of it. Not in a photograph and never in real life.
"I probably fucked up the scene,” he went on.
“Nobody said anything to me about it, but I was just a kid and I didn't think about evidence.
I ran in and went straight to my mom, trying to wake her up before I realized it was too late.
Then I did the second stupid thing of the night and called the police. "
"Oh, Vance, that wasn't stupid. You were eight years old. And what you saw? You should've called the police."
"I should've called Maxwell Sinclair. He could've gotten the police without the media, could've kept the whole thing quiet. If I'd called Maxwell, everything would've been different."
"Vance, you're not being reasonable. You were a child.
I'm impressed you had the self-possession to think to call the police at all.
You can't blame yourself. And I'm sorry to tell you, but that kind of crime in your family?
Even if you'd handled it perfectly, the media would've been all over you. You know that."
When Hugh and Olivia had died in an almost identical murder, they'd been adults and they'd been careful—so very careful—and it hadn't helped at all. Vance let out a sigh of resignation.
"Maybe not. My mother was still warm when I touched her. If I had been a few minutes earlier, I could've saved them," he said.
A chill stabbed through my gut.
"Or you would've been killed, too," I said.
Vance rolled on his side to face me. "You don't think my father killed her and then killed himself? That's what the police report says."
"No," I said, meeting his eyes, their color almost black in the dark room.
"My grandmother knew your parents well. She always said the investigation missed something, had to have, because there was no way your father would've ever hurt your mom.
She remembered their wedding and said they were so in love that even after four kids and two busy careers, she'd see them having dinner at the club together and they looked like they were on a first date, your dad pulling out your mom's chair, your mom blushing and holding his hand.
She said there was no way, that there must've been someone else there. "
"Then why didn't they find anyone?" Vance asked.