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“I’m not joking. I wouldn’t have come to your room right now if I was not serious.”
“First off, Devin is probably just screwing with you. He wouldn’t kill Castle. Second, there’s no way they would keep the bodies in the house. Accidents on the property are well taken care of. The Montgomery’s excel in cover-ups. Our family has the detectives and the police department under their thumbs.”
He saidour familyand included me in it.
I hated that I was part of this screwed up family that called murders accidents.
“Devin or Dayana are doing these crazy rituals! I know it!”
Theo shook his head, “That’s not possible. Stop saying that shit!”
“So, how do you explain it? Are you saying that I’m making this all up?”
He ran his hand through his hair, staring into the distance, and then the realization hit him as he froze. There was unadulterated fear clear in his eyes.
“Grandpa.” He whispered.
“What about him?”
“He was the one who used to practise the rituals until he lost his memories. Castle doesn’t remember shit either, Chandler is too young for all of this unless...” he swallowed.
“Unless?”
I knew I would not like the answer to it.
“Unless Grandpa has chosen Devin to carry out what he started. I don’t know what’s going on, but the body count won’t stop at four.” He tapped his fingers on the desk, and he was visibly shaking. “We will end up dying, Millie. Each one of us.”
“How do we stop him?”
Theo stared straight into my eyes. “We can’t. Only Castle can stop him, but for that, we need to wake him up first.”
TWENTY-THREE
“How do we wake him up?”I asked Theo impatiently.
Theo sat back in his leather seat, thinking hard. “I’m not sure if it will work out, but we need to try. We have to recreate the boating accident.”
My eyes went wide. I was positive one of my eyeballs was going to pop out. “You’re suggesting that we should create the entire scenario of the day that your parents died so he could get his memories back?
Theo nodded, even though he looked visibly shaken by his idea. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“That’s cruel! His psychiatrists have specifically told me not to bring up any topics about your parent’s death with him, especially the boating accident. If we do something that triggered those awful memories, it could make matters worse!”
“You think I don’t know that?” He asked, sounding pissed. “It’s the only way. If we somehow don’t get him to remember everything, we’ll end up dead.”
“But why would Hugh kill you? You’re his grandson...”
“If he won’t, Devin will.”
“He is your brother, Theo.” I reminded him. “What’s wrong with your family? Why is everyone so sick and twisted?!”
“Before Alzheimer’s hit grandpa, he used to carry out these vile and atrocious rituals. Innocent people died. His father did it before him, and so on. Our father never agreed to this and wanted it stopped, but Devin was always keen on walking in grandpa’s footsteps and he would go to any lengths to make sure the rituals take place. It was all fucked up.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question. Why would Devin want his own brother dead?”
“Because Devin and Dayana are not related to me by blood!” He confessed, his face turning ashen.
I guess he hadn’t meant for that little information to slip.