Page 23

23

Every family has its rules, most of them unwritten. The Daltons have more than most.

I can’t afford to break them now. Not with this all-too-familiar feeling creeping over me—the sense that I am not safe here. That the shape of me does not fit within the boundaries that have been drawn, and I must hold myself with exquisite care to keep from straying over them.

And so when we’re summoned to the lodge for dinner, I don’t use my wounded hand as an excuse. I pull on my red coat and the scarf that blends into it and I follow Connor out. My body feels tender with the imprint of his touch. We haven’t spoken about my past again. I haven’t asked him why he’s lying to me about how we met.

As we gather around the table, I consider each of the Daltons. One of them surely sent the messages on my phone, warning me away—it has to have been someone here on the mountain. The little gift left on my windowsill is proof enough.

One of these people knows about Washington. About Peter Frey and what happened after.

Connor helps himself to wine. He drinks more here. Like he’s more relaxed—or like he’s trying to blunt his feelings. Alexis tuts over Sebastian’s refusal to eat anything but bread, trying to ply him with carrot sticks. My eyes drift across the table to Trevor.

Trevor would send those texts just to fuck with me, I reflect. Or with Connor, more accurately. I can’t discount that possibility.

Trevor catches me looking. He smirks at me and raises his glass, half-full with deep red wine. Alexis catches the movement as well. Her head swivels toward him.

“Trevor,” she says.

He lifts the glass toward his lips. His eyebrows raise. “Yes, dear sister?”

“You’re not supposed to be drinking.”

“According to who?” he asks. He takes a sip. The table has gone quiet.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” his mother asks softly.

“Of course it isn’t. Don’t be an idiot, Trevor. You’ve gotten into enough trouble already,” Nick says, half a growl.

“First-time offense. Barely over the legal limit. I picked up the trash and served the homeless people their soup. I’m a reformed man,” Trevor says.

Alexis’s body is completely rigid. Connor looks angry.

“The boy can make his own choices,” Magnus says.

“Even if those choices are fucking stupid ?” Alexis demands.

“Lex,” Paloma hisses, tilting her head toward Sebastian, who seems thankfully oblivious to the drama, too busy having two of his carrot sticks wage pitched battle. I can’t help but envy him. I turn my hands to fists in my lap, which sends a zip of pain through my bandaged palm.

“You can’t seriously sit there and act like this is no big deal,” Alexis says. “It wasn’t just—”

“Alexis,” Louise says, a hint of warning in her voice.

“She’s not wrong,” Magnus says, his silverware clinking as he continues to eat. “You know what that kind of bad behavior is? Weakness. And even weaker not to own up to it. You may not be ashamed of yourself, Trevor, but the rest of us sure as hell are.”

The smile is fixed on Trevor’s face. He sets down the glass slowly, without having taken a sip. “Well. Sorry to be such a disappointment to you all,” he says. “Let me relieve you of the burden of my company, then.” He stands.

“Trevor,” Rose says, but even she doesn’t seem to know whether she wants him to stay. He gives her a disgusted look and shakes his head before storming out.

“He should—” Alexis begins.

“That’s enough of that kind of talk at the table,” Louise says, and I feel attention tilt toward me. Meaning, whatever they have to talk about, it’s not for my ears. There’s obviously more going on here than a simple DUI, but I’m not about to get any more information. I glance over at Connor, but his eyes are fixed on his plate.

Louise’s silverware clicks. Magnus is splashing more wine in his glass, and her lips purse. “He isn’t the only one who shouldn’t be drinking so much,” she mutters.

Magnus’s mouth quirks. “You don’t need to fret about my health, dear. That’s what I have the doctors for.”

“And you don’t listen to them, either.”

He shrugs. “But at least they’re getting paid for it.”

The mood stays tense through the rest of the meal. When Sebastian starts squirming, Alexis seizes on the excuse to leave. “We’d better try to get him down for bed,” she says. “Maybe he’ll actually sleep this time.”

“I doubt it,” Paloma says. There are dark circles under her eyes. The two of them rise, gathering Sebastian along in their wake. Connor gives my hand a squeeze under the table, a quick assurance that we can escape momentarily.

I listen to the patter of Sebastian’s footsteps down the hall, the murmur of their voices, and then—

“What the fuck?” Alexis exclaims. For a moment, no one moves. Then she says loudly, “What the hell is this?”

Connor is the first on his feet. I rise with him and follow as he heads down the hall. Chairs scrape behind us. We arrive in the foyer to discover Alexis standing in front of the Christmas tree, staring at something on it. An ornament—a resin wreath with a spot in the middle for a photograph, cheaply made and standing in sharp contrast to the coordinated silver and gold baubles that adorn the rest of the tree.

“What is it?” Connor asks, drawing closer. Alexis takes down the ornament, a frown ghosting across her lips. The photo at the center of wreath shows a car, hood crumpled, on its side several feet off the road.

It’s not the only ornament. The next one over depicts Magnus at some kind of formal event, shaking hands with a broad-chested man with salt-and-pepper hair; beside it hangs some kind of legal document, snipped into a paper snowflake.

Connor walks around the tree slowly. Paloma is standing on the other side, her eyes fixed on the tree and her expression ashen. The others file in with an air of confusion and alarm.

“What…?” Rose says. She drifts toward another one of the newly appeared decorations—another cheerful snowflake, the excised sections making it difficult to read the details. But the word divorce is unmistakable—and so is Rose Dalton’s name.

Had Rose filed for divorce? Or intended to, perhaps, but never got the chance? Connor has never hinted at problems between his parents, but he was only a child, after all. He might not have known.

Paloma suddenly gives a little shake. She picks up Sebastian, holding him on her hip. “I’ll be in the cabin,” she says curtly, and departs with quick strides, not bothering to grab her coat.

“What is this?” Alexis says.

Secrets , I think. The private things we live our lives pretending no one knows.

Magnus takes the photograph from her. He looks down at it for a long moment, then says, “This is nothing.”

“Nothing? Someone put these here,” Alexis says in alarm.

Louise’s eyes bore holes through me. I shrink back, pulse fluttering at my throat. It occurs to me that my own secrets might be hanging on that tree somewhere, but I quell the frantic urge to search. I can’t give them reason to suspect.

“Call Irina. Have her clean this up,” Magnus tells his wife.

“I think it’s clear what happened here,” Louise says, ignoring him.

“Is it?” Rose says with a swallowed laugh. “Because it isn’t clear to me.”

“It’s her,” Louise says, jabbing a finger in my direction. “She’s done this.”

I let out a disbelieving sound. “Me? I don’t even know—” I start.

“She didn’t do this,” Connor says, coming around the side of the tree. “And unless you have any proof to the contrary—”

“Louise,” Magnus says simply. He nods toward the doorway that leads to the living room. Standing there, hands in his pockets, is Trevor. For once he isn’t smiling that smug smile. His expression is empty, and behind it is a void more dangerous than anger.

“I know what I did,” he says. “But you’re all acting like I’m the only one who ever did something wrong. Fuck you. All of you, but especially you, Alexis. At least I hurt someone by accident.”

Alexis stares at him. And then her eyes widen and she whips around to the other side of the tree, searching. “Shit,” she says. “You—” There’s fury in her eyes, and she steps toward her brother—and then lets out a sound of frustration and wheels back the other way, running after Paloma.

Everyone is talking all at once. Yelling at Trevor, mostly. I walk around to see what it is that Alexis saw. That Paloma saw.

It’s a photo taken in a dark room—a bar or a club. The flash washes out the faces of the two women in it. Alexis, caught mid-blink, wearing a low-cut top and perching in the lap of another woman. It looks recent. Too recent to be innocent.

Ignoring the clamor of voices, I take the ornament from the tree and turn it over, twisting the tabs that hold the back in place. I pinch the photo free and tear it into tiny pieces before tucking them into my pocket.

No one else needs to see that. Trevor’s done his damage already.

My eyes scan the tree, searching for my own name, my own face. If it’s here—

“Theo?” It’s Connor, his hand touching my elbow lightly. “You should go back to the cabin.”

I look over. Trevor is standing slumped back against the doorframe, eyes fixed on the ground, expression equal parts angry and stubborn. Tears glisten on Rose’s cheeks.

This has nothing to do with me.

“I’ll see you soon?” I say, but he barely manages a distracted nod. I make my escape swiftly. Part of me is glad to get away from what will follow. Part of me is stuck on thinking about what secrets there might have been nestled among those branches, if I knew how to pick them apart.

Rose, filing for divorce. A car accident. A meeting. There had been other ornaments I didn’t see as well. Trevor had been planning this for a while.

I’m halfway to the cabin when I spot Alexis. She’s leaning against a tree, her arms crossed, staring at nothing. She looks up at my approach. Her eyes are red and watery.

“Hey,” I say softly, like you’d talk to a spooked animal. “Are you okay?”

“Paloma asked me to leave,” she says.

“Leave, like—”

“Leave the cabin,” she says. “For now. Did you see?”

“I got rid of it.” I hesitate. “Do you want to come to White Pine? Just to warm up. Connor won’t be back for a bit.”

“I’m sure they’re holding a family summit. That’s their reaction to everything. Get everyone together and get everyone on board,” she says, her voice congested with tears. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“Plenty,” I promise her, and she nods. She follows me, sniffling occasionally, as we walk in awkward silence.

In the cabin I pour her a drink. She curls up on the couch, feet under her. She’s a small woman, and in this pose she looks almost childlike.

“You must think we’re awful,” she says as I take my own drink to the other side of the couch, perching on the arm.

I take a sip. I’ve pilfered some of Connor’s good Scotch. Not that I can particularly tell the good from the bad; the hard liquor I drink is usually smothered by fruit juice or Coke. “Honestly, I didn’t understand most of what I saw.” I turn the glass slowly in my hands. She takes a generous swallow of her drink. “What exactly did Trevor do?”

She grimaces. “We’re not supposed to talk about it.”

“I got that impression,” I say as neutrally as I can. “He had a DUI, but it was more than that, wasn’t it?”

“He got the DUI and got his license suspended. Community service. Granddad thought it would be a good lesson for him,” she says, as if it goes without saying that otherwise Trevor would have gotten off scot-free. “Then three months ago he gets plastered and goes for a drive. Slams right into a lamppost.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I ask.

She tilts her glass back and forth, watching the movement of the liquid. “A girl. Young woman. She was in the passenger seat. Her name is Kayla. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt too badly. But we’re in the middle of this deal. It’s with—the names won’t mean anything to you, but it’s a Japanese company and the owner is a pretty conservative, traditional guy. He was on the fence about us in the first place. We can’t have any kind of scandal right now, with—” She stops. “Granddad paid Kayla to keep quiet. And I really shouldn’t be telling you this.”

She drinks. I watch her. She’s upset. She wants to talk. I’m inclined to let her.

“You don’t exactly seem happy about that arrangement.”

“He could have killed her. He could have gotten himself killed. And it wasn’t the first time, or the second, or the third. He thinks that he can just call up Granddad and get out of whatever trouble he’s gotten himself in.”

“That’s what you wanted to talk to Connor about, when we first got here.”

She wets her lips. “Yeah,” she says. “I just don’t think he should be able to get away with it.” She takes another swig. Her glass is almost empty. I rise and go to fetch the bottle. I probably shouldn’t be encouraging this, but I’m not going to pass up the opportunity to loosen her tongue.

I tip more Scotch into her glass. She doesn’t stop me. Her hand shakes as she brings the glass to her lips.

“It was a onetime thing, you know.”

She’s not talking about Trevor anymore. “You don’t have to explain,” I tell her, but I sink down onto the couch beside her, my own glass, barely touched, cradled in both hands.

“It was a business trip. And I didn’t—we didn’t,” she says firmly, and looks at me as if she can prove the truth of it if she stares hard enough. “I didn’t know someone took the photo until they emailed it to Paloma. I don’t know how Trevor got his hands on it. He must have gone through our phones or something.”

“She already knew?” I ask, surprised.

“It was a few weeks ago. We’re… working through it,” she says. “God, it was so fucking stupid. I was drunk and stressed and it was Dad’s birthday, which is always weird , and I don’t know what I was thinking. That’s not who I am. It’s not who I want to be. I promised myself I would never do that to someone, not like…” She trails off.

“Like your father.”

“You know about that?” she asks with a note of surprise.

“Trevor told me.”

She snorts. “Of course he did. He probably wants you to be worried Connor would do the same,” she says. “But Connor’s not like that.”

“I’m not worried about Connor cheating on me,” I assure her. There are other things to worry about.

She’s slowed down. Her eyes have an unfocused look like the alcohol’s started hitting her. “I thought my parents had this perfect marriage,” she says. “I know plenty of kids think that, and then their parents get divorced or whatever, but it really seemed like they did. And I keep telling myself that I won’t make the same mistakes. That I’ll be a better spouse and a better parent and everything will turn out okay, but how am I supposed to know what to do if I have no idea what went wrong? I can’t ask him. I can never ask him why he would do that to Mom. To us. How he could leave us like that.”

She stops. Her hand grips the glass so tightly I’m almost afraid it will shatter. She has the fearful look of someone who has said something she shouldn’t have, and I hate the satisfaction that slithers through me.

Alexis needs a friend right now. I can’t afford to be one.

“Your father was going to leave,” I say slowly, carefully. She wets her lips again, a compulsive gesture. I’m not quite right. But what could she mean?

“My father,” she says. Stops. Then, “You can’t tell Connor I said that. Or Mom. They don’t know.”

“They know about the affair,” I say. “Except that’s not what you meant.”

My heartbeat is perfectly steady. My voice is soft and gentle. You can tell me. You can trust me.

But her expression shutters. “It was a long time ago,” she says. “Whatever he did doesn’t matter anymore.”

There are deep shadows under her eyes, almost bruise-like. Her entire body tells a story of deprivation—deprived of food, of sleep, of slowing down for even a moment.

That kind of control craves release.

“I can’t imagine how hard it must have been. Especially being the oldest,” I say. “You were old enough to understand what was going on.”

“Understand? No, I didn’t understand. I never understood how he could do that,” she says. “And we couldn’t talk about it. None of us. Had to keep it quiet. We wouldn’t want to embarrass the family. To humiliate Mom. So just carry it and don’t tell anyone and just live with the fact that…” Her face screws up.

“Alexis?” I say softly, so gently that I hate myself for it. I tell her with my words and the way I lean toward her and the hand I put out to touch her knee lightly that she’s safe with me.

“He didn’t fall,” she whispers. And then all at once she pulls inward—shoulders retracting, head coming up sharply, teeth clicking together.

My lips part, beginning to shape a question.

The door opens, and she jerks, guilt flashing over her face as Connor steps in.

“Alexis,” he says, startled.

What does she mean, he didn’t fall?

“Connor, hey.” She stands, setting her drink on the table beside her, smoothing down her clothes. “Summit already done?”

“I just stuck around long enough to make sure Mom was okay,” Connor says. I watch Alexis.

Does she mean he was pushed?

Mallory , I think. She did something to him. She had to run. It makes sense.

Except that Alexis was talking about something Liam did. Said that he left them.

My mother was hurt. And then—what? I hid; Liam Dalton found me; he died. I ended up somewhere else entirely. But what happened to my mother?

What happened to Liam?

He didn’t fall.

Meaning, his death wasn’t an accident.

So Mallory is hurt, but she gets up and—

How he could leave us like that.

I’ve been avoiding putting the pieces together, following the logic. My mother was afraid. We tried to run, but it was too late. She was hurt. Killed , I force myself to think, because nothing else makes sense. And I hid, but I was found. By Liam Dalton, a man whose face still haunts my nightmares.

Whatever happened, it was a scandal big enough that the Daltons would want to cover it up. To tell a story about a storm and a roof and a fall, a good man taken too soon. A story that made no mention of an affair, a vanished girl, a woman who seemed to not exist at all anymore, as far as the world was concerned.

“What the fuck was Trevor thinking?” Connor asks. I blink, startled at how few seconds have passed.

“He’s always been one for dramatics,” Alexis says. She pats her hair into place. In control once again. I rise slowly.

Liam Dalton didn’t fall.

And Mallory—if she had killed him, Alexis wouldn’t keep that secret, would she?

He killed himself. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. It’s the kind of secret Alexis would keep—from her brother, from her mother. It’s a secret that would wear on her. That she might let slip to someone at last. A near stranger. The one person who wouldn’t be wounded by it.

But how did she find out?

“Do you need to crash here tonight?” I ask.

“No. No, I don’t think so,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “Paloma just needed a little bit to—you know. I’ll go back to Red Fox. Thank you, Theo. I should go.” She gives me one quick look, eyes bright, hands gripping her upper arms tight enough to bruise. Don’t tell him , she seems to be asking me. I give her the slightest nod, and a measure of relief breaks across her expression as she allows Connor to usher her out the door.

Connor sees her out, then picks up the bottle of Scotch from the coffee table and eyes the level. “She all right?” he asks.

“I don’t know her well enough to say for sure. But I think she will be,” I tell him, her words still echoing in my mind.

“Do you know what…?” he says.

For an instant my mind goes blank. I wet my lips. “She should tell you, if she decides she wants to,” I say. “As far as I’m concerned, none of that was any of my business. She did tell me about Trevor. About Kayla.”

Connor sighs, shoulders slumped. “It’s a shit show. Not exactly our finest moment.”

I hesitate. “I saw some photos in Alexis’s things,” I say. At his sharp look, I add, “I was looking for a book for Sebastian, and I came across them. There was a woman. Covered in bruises. Was that Kayla?” The bruises I’d assumed were from a beating could be from an accident, the marks on her shoulder from the bite of a seat belt.

He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he drags both hands down his face, sighs. “Yes. I guess she took them in case she changed her mind. Or, I don’t know, if she wanted more money. Which, good for her, I guess.” He looks past me at nothing as he speaks, his voice dull.

Alexis’s anger makes a lot of sense, if she’d seen the evidence of the damage Trevor’s actions had caused directly like that. And I get her wanting to talk to Connor about it in private. Suddenly the conversation I overheard in the kitchen makes more sense as well—when Louise asked if Connor had told me anything, it must be about this. About avoiding the whiff of scandal. They need to secure the Japan deal, and Alexis seemed on the verge of telling me something else as well. Some reason the deal is so important.

“Are you—is the family in some kind of financial trouble?” I ask. It’s hard to imagine.

Connor sighs. “No. Not exactly. Granddad is selling the company.”

“Oh,” I say, startled and unsure how to react. “Is that… good?”

Connor shrugs. “Alexis is the only one still working there, and she’s been wanting to move on for a long time. And Granddad should have retired properly years ago. If the new deal goes through, the company’s value will be a lot higher, and he’s got a buyer waiting in the wings if all the pieces fall into place. If things don’t work out…”

“The family loses out on millions,” I say.

“Try billions,” Connor replies.

“I try not to make myself contemplate numbers that big, it makes my tiny peasant brain overheat,” I tell him, deadpan, and he cracks a weary smile. “I’m not supposed to know any of this.”

“Not yet,” he acknowledges.

“Don’t worry. I’m good at keeping secrets,” I tell him.

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” he says darkly. He reaches into his pocket. He takes out an ornament, the same as the rest, and sets it on the coffee table, then regards me.

It’s a photo of me. Sixteen years old. My hair a rat’s nest. Even shrunk down to fit in the frame, the photo shows the shadows of bruises on my ribs, my stomach. The random patterns of dull brown on my cheek, neck, hands where the blood has dried and not yet been washed off.

“What is this?” Connor asks.

I pick up the ornament. A strange blend of feelings churns through me—the urge to protect that girl, to tell her it wasn’t her fault, and at the same time a vicious sense of disdain. You should have been smarter. You should have been more careful.

It was Trevor, then. He’s the one who found out. Who sent me those taunting messages and left that gift on the windowsill.

“Theo,” Connor says. His voice is worryingly level. “Trevor told us he looked into you. He said that you were lying to us. That your parents are still alive. That you have a history of criminal behavior. That you were institutionalized.”

“Institutionalized?” I echo, confused.

“Locked up for your own good, he said,” Connor clarifies, and I give a choked sound of amusement.

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I told Granddad and Grandma Louise that I would talk to you,” he says. “I told them that there would be an explanation. And I’m really hoping that’s true.”

“Trevor’s right,” I say, still staring at that photograph, at that foolish, broken girl. “My adoptive parents are still alive. And when I lived with them, I lied and I stole. And they did lock me up, Connor, but it wasn’t what you think.”

It was worse.