Chapter 22
Allie
Ikeep pacing the same strip of floor.
Back and forth, back and forth, wall to window, window to wall.
I check the time again. It’s late. He texted back that he was coming, and I believe him. Kade doesn’t make promises unless he plans on keeping them, and I’m counting that as the one decent thing I know about him right now.
I need him here. That’s what I hate most about it.
Joseph Lowry’s face keeps coming back to me. That look he had on the sidewalk, like he already knew the answer and was giving me a chance to say it first. I got through it. I said everything right. But a man like that doesn’t just drop a thread because you smiled at him.
And then Buck out of nowhere, and then Kade across the street.
I sat in my own driveway for five minutes when I got home before I could make myself go inside. Sat on my bed and stared at the wall. Then I texted Kade because he’s the only person alive who knows what I’m actually living with. I hated every word I typed, yet I typed them anyway.
The trellis rattles.
I knew that’s how he’d do it. He’s never once used the front door like a normal human being. And the kitchen is probably too busy right now for the root cellar entrance. I go to the window and shove it up without thinking, stepping back into the dark of my room to wait.
The sound gets louder. Then a familiar head of dark hair rises over the sill.
“What is wrong with you?” he whispers, halfway through the window, taking in the fact that I opened it before he even got there. “I could’ve been anyone. You just throw it open and wait?”
“Any maniac did,” I say, because I’m not in the mood to pretend.
He gets both feet on the floor and straightens up.
In the dark, he looks larger than he has any right to.
He’s still in his coat, smelling like cold air and a long drive.
He looks me over the way he always does, reading me, and whatever he finds in my face makes him drop whatever he was about to say.
“Tell me,” he says.
So I do. I give him the whole thing. Joseph’s face, his voice, every word I can remember.
How long he might have been watching me before he stepped forward.
Whether any of the people passing on the sidewalk stopped to listen.
I pace while I talk because I can’t stand still.
Kade leans against the wall near the window with his arms crossed and listens without interrupting, which is one of the only things he ever does that I can’t find fault with.
When I’m done, the room is quiet.
“He’s fishing,” Kade says. “He doesn’t have anything.”
“He seemed pretty sure.”
“They always seem sure. That’s the whole point.” He tilts his head, watching me pace. “There’s nothing. No body, no car, no witnesses. If there was something to find, somebody would’ve found it by now.”
“You can’t know that.”
“I can.” He pulls out his phone and crosses the room toward me. “Look.”
He holds it out. The screen is on a local news page.
Nothing. The Black Hollow Creek Gazette would’ve plastered something like this across the front page in enormous type if there was anything to print.
He swipes to the county sheriff’s page. No reports.
No alerts. Not even a missing person’s notice, though I guess the Lowrys might not want to file one if they’re running their own quiet investigation.
Plus, I hang my head back and then look again. It’s been like a day.
“See?” He holds it closer. “Nothin’.”
I take the phone out of his hand to check one more time just for myself.
He lets me. I scroll through the news page, then the sheriff’s site, then I run a broader search just to be sure, typing Jackson’s name and watching the results come back thin and old.
A charity golf tournament from last year.
A blurb from some society page. Nothing recent.
I swipe back.
My thumb catches the edge of the screen wrong, and suddenly, I’m not looking at a browser.
I’m looking at myself.
I stop breathing.
The girl in the photo is on the floor. Her wrists are bound behind her back with scratchy rope. Her pajamas. The ones from her own bedroom. There’s a bandanna tied over her eyes.
She doesn’t know the photo is being taken. You can tell by everything about her. The angle of her chin. The way her mouth is open around…
I didn’t know.
The cold hits me in the chest first and spreads out from there, all the way to my fingers, until I’m holding his phone like it’s something dug out of the ground. My brain tries to make it not be what it is. Tries to find another explanation but can’t.
That’s me. He took this picture of me when he…
I look up at him.
His jaw sets. He doesn’t reach for the phone.
“How long?” I say. My voice comes out quiet. Too quiet.
“Allie—”
“How long have you had that?”
He doesn’t respond. That’s answer enough. My hand pulls back, and the slap cracks across his face before I even decide to do it. His head snaps to the side. He takes it. Doesn’t move, doesn’t step back, just stands there and takes it.
“You son of a bitch.” I’m shaking, and it has nothing to do with Joseph Lowry. “I was blindfolded. I was tied up on my own bedroom floor, and you had your phone out.” My throat closes. I push through it. “How many?”
He holds a finger to his lips and stares at my closed door. “Do you want us to have company?”
“Do you think I give a shit? For fuck’s sake!” I want to hit him again, but I settle for shoving him. “How could you do that to me?”
“Do what? I doubt it’s the first slutty picture of you out there.”
I’m going to kill him. It’s not like I’ve never killed before, right? I wince at the thought. No, too soon. “You know this is nothing like that. I didn’t choose this. I didn’t send this to you. You took it. Just like you take everything else… just like you…”
Oh no. I didn’t mean to turn it into this. Talking about the past. It only makes me look weak, and that’s the last thing I want while I’m this pissed off.
His jaw twitches and his eyes narrow. “Go ahead. What else do you think?”
“Forget it,” I snap. “I fucking hate you for this. Why did you do it? You could’ve told me! You could have deleted them.”
“It wasn’t up to me.”
“Oh, sure.” I nod slowly. “Because all of a sudden, you care about Roman’s orders.
And now he’s been dead for weeks. Why don’t we just say what really happened?
You decided you wanted to torture me with these someday.
Use them against me. Congratulations. You got what you wanted. I hope it makes you very happy.”
“What if it did?”
“Then you’re even sicker and sadder than I thought, which is saying something.” When I look at him, I can’t remember why I ever wanted him. Maybe I’m as twisted as he is. That has to be it.
“Anything else?” He has the nerve to hold his hands out, curling his fingers inward like he’s asking for more. “Get it out of your system. Tell me what a rotten piece of shit I am.”
“What, is that your kink or something?”
“What if it is?” He gives me a wicked grin that tells me I’m wasting my breath, but then I knew that, didn’t I? I knew there was a damn good chance he wasn’t going to pay any attention. “Maybe you’re getting me hard right now.”
“Because that’s all you fucking care about. I can’t even look at you.” I turn my back. Just looking into his face and getting nothing but his sarcastic little smirk is breaking my heart. What’s left of it, anyway. “You know what the worst part is? I honestly thought you were better than this.”
“Spare me the lecture,” he sighs.
“It’s not a lecture.” No, do not cry. Don’t give him that satisfaction. Dammit, I can’t help it. My throat goes tight, and my eyes burn. “I thought I saw something better in you, I really did. Was that all a lie? Did you ever care about me?”
“Oh, now I’m really glad I showed up tonight.” When I look in the mirror, I watch him lean against my desk and fold his arms. “Now you’re going to pretend you ever gave a shit about me. Where was all this emotion when you got engaged to someone else?”
“Are you serious?” He looks like it in his reflection. No more smirking.
“As a lamp to the head,” he growls.
Because of course, he would have to throw that in my face.
“You’re the one who decided we were over so you could put another guy’s ring on your hand. Don’t deny it. Though I think you’re going to need a replacement now.”
Is that what he thinks happened? How could he be so blind? “I told you it wasn’t like that. I meant it.”
“Yeah, sure. Easy to say.”
“It was the truth!” Now I can’t help it.
It’s all too much. Tears fill my eyes. He goes blurry in front of me.
I knuckle them away, pissed off at him, pissed off at myself.
“If you didn’t want to believe me, that’s your problem.
I didn’t choose him.” I can’t even say his name.
I don’t even like to think it. When I do, I see him in front of me again.
I go right back to the moment when he started squeezing my throat.
I touch a hand to it—still sore, a constant reminder that I guess will eventually feel better. But the memory is always going to be fresh. It won’t fade like a bruise.
For once, he keeps his mouth shut. “I begged Mom,” I whisper. “Begged her to get me out of it. I never wanted to marry him. But she needed me to.”
“Why?”
“None of your business.”
“Why?” he growls. There’s a dark look on his face that might scare me if I hadn’t already looked into the eyes of the devil.
“For the money,” I throw my hands out to the sides, watching surprise touch his reflection and soften his sharp stare.
“Happy? We needed the money. Mom arranged it. I never even met him before she gave me the ring. That’s the truth.
I don’t give a shit if you believe it or not.
And I feel like between Roman and your brothers, you already knew all of this. Why are you making me drag it out now?”
His eyes narrow and his jaw sets, and it’s all the answer I need, but I’ve burst the dam and can’t stop.