Chapter 52
Chapter fifty-two
FREE-FALL
When Monika finally calls me back, I fill her in on what happened including how she unknowingly solved the case.
The picture that she sent earlier, along with Judith’s mug shot, was of Madeline, not Leah.
I hate the fact that I had the answer on my phone this entire time, but there is no use beating myself up about it when I need to be strong for Cameron.
I promise to call her back when he finally shuffles into the waiting room.
“Cameron,” I sigh with relief, and rush to meet him at the doorway.
He barely registers that I am there until I bury my face into his chest and nearly knock him off balance in the process. The second that he realizes it’s me, he pulls me into him so tightly that I can hardly tell where he ends and I begin.
“You’re here,” he breathes against my hair, and then pulls back to hold my face in his hands as if he needs to see it again to believe it.
“I’m here,” I confirm, and hate myself for ever giving him any doubt. “How is he?”
“They just took him back for surgery, but he lost consciousness on the way over and—”
“He’s going to be okay, son,” Cartwright says, and places a reassuring hand on both of our shoulders. “You two did everything right back at the hotel, and now the surgeon will handle the rest. Jalen is stubborn. He’ll pull through. I know it.”
We nod weakly at Cartwright’s words, wanting so badly for them to be true, and then the three of us reluctantly settle into the corner of the waiting room for what we know will be an excruciatingly long and painful time.
Cameron tucks me under his arm so that we are as close as we can manage while being in two separate chairs, and we cling to each other as Cartwright fields what seems to be an endless barrage of phone calls over the next two hours.
Cameron and I shamelessly eavesdrop on all his conversations, and end up learning right away that Leah, who has been confirmed to be Nash’s wife, Madeline, is in custody and openly confessing to everything.
Cameron was far more shocked than I was to learn of Leah’s true identity and spent a long time trying to figure out how he missed it while doing the soft background check on all the guests.
After talking to Cartwright about it, we learned that the real Leah Evans does exist and is a red-headed teacher in New Jersey.
Madeline just borrowed her name and likeness to be granted access to the retreat without raising suspicion in case Cameron recognized her real name.
Due to privacy laws, he didn’t have access to the credit card information that she used to pay for the retreat, so he had no reason to question when a similar-looking redhead showed up to Ravenwood.
We also glean from a subsequent phone call that Madeline was pregnant before but is not currently.
She lost Nash’s and her baby in the stress of his trial, and was unable to come to court as a result, which is why neither Cameron nor Jalen recognized her.
She also confessed to wearing leather gloves when handling the murder weapon, which was, in fact, a drinking glass from the kitchen.
Which means, even though she confessed to murdering Delaney and attempting to murder Jalen, I will still need to go to the station at some point to provide my fingerprint.
That way, the police can confirm the unknown print belongs to me, and not someone else that Madeline is just trying to protect.
There are so many things that Cameron and I want to say to Jalen if he makes it out of this, but the very first will most certainly be an apology, followed by a massive thank you for preventing me from giving my fingerprint voluntarily.
If I had, this entire situation could have ended even more disastrously.
Cameron and I start to lose interest in Cartwright’s phone calls somewhere near the three-hour mark, and by the time we approach a fourth hour of waiting, I slip into a state of suspended consciousness where I am both here and not here—only tethered to what remains of my sanity via the steel grip that Cameron and I maintain on each other.
Cartwright speaks a set of names that I don’t think either of us expected to hear, though, and I am pulled back into the waiting room.
“Birdie and Jalen Sr.? Are you sure?” Cartwright asks whoever is on the other side of his current phone call.
“Ask her to describe it and then call me back. I was the first one on the scene, so I will be able to confirm.” He hangs up with a few choice words and flinches when he turns back to find both Cameron and me looking expectantly at him.
“What was that about my parents?” Cameron asks.
“It’s nothing. I’ll tell you later—” Cartwright tries to deflect, but Cameron isn’t having it.
“Tell me now.”
Cartwright frowns. “Apparently, Madeline is claiming to have something to do with your parents’ deaths too.”
I can’t stop the gasp before it escapes from my lips, but Cameron simply looks back down at the ground, as if that bit of information is just another piece in a puzzle that he has been trying to assemble on the floor beneath him.
“I thought you said that the investigation determined my parents swerved off the road to avoid an animal.”
“An animal made the most sense at the time, especially around that corner, but I suppose . . .” Cartwright explains, but then trails off, lost in his own thoughts.
“If she were standing in the middle of the road, wouldn’t that mean she was trying to kill herself too?” I ask, trying to keep up.
“Maybe,” Cartwright says. “And it just so happened to be Cameron’s parents that came around the corner. Which would make it a really awful coincidence.”
“No.” Cameron shakes his head. “It wasn’t a coincidence.”
We both turn to him, and my stomach twists at the haunted look that has taken over his face. “She was there on purpose, because she came there to kill me.”
My body does an involuntary jolt as I go to dismiss the terrifying suggestion but stop myself when I realize just how much sense it makes, especially now that we know exactly what Madeline is capable of.
“She must have followed me to Ravenwood that day to kill me, and probably herself too. She ended up killing my parents instead, though, because she saw my car coming back down the road and thought it was me.”
Cartwright and I exchange an anguished look, and then he sits back down next to Cameron to lay an arm across the back of his chair. “Son, that woman is deranged. She’s probably just making it up—”
“She’s not,” he says with full certainty.
“She kept telling me back at the hotel when I had her restrained that she was glad she didn’t end up killing me, because watching me suffer was so much more enjoyable.
At first, I thought she was talking about how she shot Jalen instead of me, but now I understand fully what she meant. ”
“Cameron, stop,” I plead, although I don’t have any coherent or comforting words to follow them up with, I just simply can’t stand to hear any more about the depths of her depravity.
“It’s all because of me,” he continues, ignoring my plea. “My parents. Delaney. And now Jalen—”
“He’s still fighting, Cameron,” Cartwright says, as if he worries saying the words might somehow tip the scales the other direction and isn’t willing to risk it.
“Delaney’s death is Madeline’s fault, Cameron.
Not yours,” I assert, but stop myself from adding that this theory also makes clear that his parents’ deaths are also on Madeline’s hands now, because I know that he won’t be open to hearing it.
“Madeline is the one who chose to hurt Delaney and Jalen. Not you. We don’t need to take responsibility for other people’s choices. ”
He lets go of me to lean forward and covers his face with both hands, and I feel the weight of this latest revelation as it presses down on his already heavy shoulders. The hurt, the sorrow, the blame. It’s all there, leading him to a dark place that I know far too well.
It is in that moment that I finally understand, for the very first time, how Scott, Gabe, and Monika must feel every time I fall over the same cliff’s edge that Cameron is teetering at the precipice of right now.
How helpless it feels to see someone that you love be reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble under the weight of guilt that was never theirs to carry.
To be forced to sit back while they are swallowed whole by the demons that prey on their pain and suffering, unable to satiate their endless thirst.
The realization tilts my world upside down so abruptly that I have to grab onto the arms of my chair to keep upright, as I am dropped into a new reality where I am forced to see myself reflected in the beautiful man falling apart right next to me.
In this mirrored state, I am confronted with the certainty I felt earlier today that Delaney’s death was my fault, when that so clearly was never the case. I was so sure that my choosing to go against my curse by keeping Cameron was what caused my brother’s adoption to fall through.
I am forced to feel what my dad and Scott must have felt when I blamed myself for my mother’s death, when it was never truly my fault, while having to deal with their own grief over her loss at the same time.
Then again, when I called my brother to tell him that our dad died eight years ago, and once again took all the blame for something that was out of my control.
Yes, I was selfish the day that he died, and yes, I should have stayed home to take care of him.
But there is no guarantee that the outcome would have been different regardless of my mistakes.
The same can be said for Cameron, whose pride is what forced his parents behind the wheel that day six months ago.
But my love for him is so strong that there is simply no alternative other than complete and total absolution, extending all the way back to his original choice not to represent Nash and forward to cover everything that has happened since.
I know his heart. I know it as well as I know my own, and with this new perspective, I can take the forgiveness that I so easily give to him and apply it to myself too.
If he deserves it, and we are the same, then I must deserve it too.
Just as this new truth starts to sink in, bringing light to the deepest and darkest parts of my soul, I sense Cameron slipping away next to me, as if, while I was finally finding the light, he took that final step over the edge and has begun to free-fall.
I turn to him as I search for the right combination of words that can pull him back before it’s too late but come up short.
I can’t remember a single thing that someone has said in the past that ever truly made me feel hope in my darkest times, and any platitude would only accelerate his descent.
What he needs right now is something completely unique; a truth so profound that he can’t deny it.
It is in that moment that I recall what he said to me earlier today, as the words reach out to me like a lighthouse calls to a ship that has been lost at sea.
“Cameron, from one wretched person to another, please listen to what I have to say.”
He shakes his head as I shift to kneeling before him, but he keeps his eyes tightly shut so that I can’t use the power of my gaze to strengthen the words I am about to say. I don’t want to risk losing my chance, so I press forward without it.
“I know that the darkness is closing in, and that you feel like there is no way out, but you don’t have to fight this alone, because I’m here.
” I place my hands on the sides of his beautiful, anguished face.
“I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere.
Not now, not ever. I’m going to fight these monsters right alongside you with everything that I have within me. ”
He opens his eyes then, just a fraction.
I take the opportunity to put all the love that I feel for him right on display so that he can see into my soul, like he already has so many times before.
“Please, Cameron. Don’t let this pull you under.
Stay here with me, instead, because on our own, we are weak. But together . . .”
He squeezes his eyes shut again and pulls our joined hands up to press against his lips as if he is kissing them goodbye. I panic as he continues to recede. I need him to just look at me, one last time, so that he can see the change in me, and that I really mean it this time.
“Please, open your eyes,” I beg, and angle my face to the side so that I can be back in his line of sight. “Please.”
He complies, but it takes all the strength I have left not to crumple onto the floor at how vacant his stare is, completely devoid of the adoration I have thrived under the last two days. I am stunned silent for a moment, and in that pause, he shakes his head.
“I can’t do this anymore, Drew. I can’t let you stay. Not after everything that I’ve done.”
I shake my head as I continue to echo his words back to him with complete certainty. “You had it right earlier, Cameron. The monsters are no match for us. I know you feel like we’re outnumbered, but I’m here. I’ll find as many swords as I can, so that we can keep fighting this together.”
His eyes search mine, and the reverence that was there before slowly overtakes the emptiness, until he is once again looking at me like I am the sun, the moon, and all of the stars.
Before I lose him again, I push forward to sign my end of the contract that seals our fate, like I should have done earlier.
The kiss, while brief, acknowledges so much: Our sorrow, our worry, our grief, and the cementing of our unwavering devotion to be there for each other. It acts as the anchor that both of us can cling to, the fact that we have each other to face life with now, no matter what comes next.
When I pull away, he slides his hand behind my head to pull me back for a few more seconds and then lets me go so I can wrap my arms around his neck.
I take the opportunity to whisper everything else that I need him to know into his ear, so that, of all the worries of the day, wondering where we stand is not among them.
I don’t know how long we stay like that, but the door to surgery eventually swings open, and we both open our eyes to an exhausted-looking doctor who waves Cameron and I over to speak to her.