Chapter 26
Jasper
You’ll be out soon; Leon said they can’t immediately arrest you without direct, irrefutable evidence such as a weapon or forensic analysis, which they won’t get until an autopsy is performed.” Sowerby attempted to calm me with his tense, fatherly voice.
“Where is Eliza?” I struggled to relax my jaw enough to speak.
Heaviness loomed in his eyes. “Security confirmed she left the manor.”
I focused on a small spot of black on the speckled floor of the police station as I struggled not to come apart at the seams. I was on autopilot. Breathing in and out. Swallowing. Blinking.
I wanted to throw the stiff metal chair I sat in against the wall.
I wanted to curl into a ball on the floor and never get up.
I wanted to stab something—someone. But more than anything, I wanted to take back the last twenty years and redo them.
This whole time she’d been feet away from me. Dead. I wanted to kill my father.
“The girl will be fine; it was a shock. I’m more concerned about how you are, Jasper.
” Sowerby sat in the chair at the end of the metal desk, wisely bypassing the one nearest me.
It was amazing to me that, even now, he could remain calm and poised.
I wondered if that was something that came with age or if he had always been this way.
“How do you think I’m doing?” I snapped. “I—I thought she was alive the last twenty years of my life, and every second of every one of those days, I’ve hated her for leaving me behind—but she never left.” I clenched my fist to stop myself from punching the wall—or sobbing like a baby.
Sowerby remained silent.
“He did this; my father is the one that did this; he killed my mother.” I stood, the surge of emotion too strong to remain sitting.
“They must’ve gotten into it that night too.
He must’ve killed her that night, buried her while I was off pouting by the cliff.
I could have saved her had I stayed inside.
I’ll decapitate him, Sowerby,” I stated.
Sowerby’s eyes were rimmed with sadness as he let out a long exhale.
“Why don’t you refrain from making any more threats of murder while we are in the police station, barely staying out of a cell as it is?
Leon’s a good attorney, but he’s not that good.
Besides, we should wait until the autopsy report before we go blaming Darius. ”
I turned. My eyes combed over the man’s face. “What do you know?”
“Enough,” he answered. “We need to find your father immediately.”