Page 36 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Twenty-Five

ROS

Even without seeing him, I felt that low, quiet gravity he carried like a second skin. He moved like he was built to be obeyed: sure and silent, every step a choice.

“Morning,” he said, his voice still a little rough from sleep.

I turned just in time to see him walk in, dressed for work in one of those perfectly tailored suits that made rational thought difficult.

Gray jacket slung over his arm, black button-down stretched tight across his chest, silver tie knotted loose around his throat.

His drying hair was swept back from his face, the sharp edge of his jaw still damp from shaving.

My stomach twisted.

He held up a small black USB drive between his fingers.

“Got something for you.”

I blinked and frowned, confused.

“For me?”

He nodded, crossing to the island.

“If you’re really up for writing the book about my family’s murder like you said… then you need to see this.”

My fingers trembled slightly as I reached for the drive.

“What is it?”

He hesitated for a beat.

“What is it? Maybe useless. But it’s the only thing I’ve got as a starting point. Not that it’s been any use to me, so far. No one else has ever seen it.”

His voice was uneven, and he closed his eyes for a moment, as if whatever was in his thoughts was too much.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s everything I was able to recover from the night my family was killed,” he said quietly. “A security footage fragment. From the one exterior security camera that didn’t get wiped.”

My stomach dropped.

“You’re trusting me with this?” I asked, voice too thin.

Knox’s gaze met mine, steady and unreadable.

“I trust you completely, Ros,” he said.

The declaration was so simple, so damn certain, like it wasn’t the most devastating thing anyone had ever said to me. I swallowed hard and closed my fingers around the drive.

“Okay,” I whispered. “I’ll watch it.”

Knox kissed the top of my head before he left, his hand brushing lightly over my hip like it wasn’t even a choice anymore, like his possessive, intimate touch was just muscle memory now.

The second the front door clicked shut behind him, I exhaled hard, went and grabbed my laptop, and slipped the USB drive into it.

It loaded fast. No sensible name, just a jumble of letters and numbers. It was just a single video, timestamped from the night of the murders. I clicked play.

The footage was grainy, green-tinted night vision footage, and angled just wide enough to capture the long stretch of curved gravel driveway outside Stonewood Manor. The timestamp ticked forward.

A nondescript white work van pulled up to the far edge of the frame. The headlights cut out.

The driver’s side door opened, followed by the others. Four figures stepped into frame; all tall, broad, and built like gym rats.

Suddenly, it was difficult for me to breathe.

They were all wearing industrial blue coveralls.

No logos. Generic as hell. Each one had a large, empty duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

And each of them wore a full-face Halloween mask, four monsters ambling up the drive toward the house like they were out for a pleasant evening stroll.

One was a demonic clown, another was a werewolf, the next wore a ghostface mask, and the last one wore a rubber Bill Clinton mask.

HVAC techs. They looked like HVAC techs out to play some kind of dumb Halloween prank.

My vision blurred and my heart pounded in triple time because I’d seen eerily similar coveralls once before.

It was at a college Halloween party during our freshman year. Thayer and his cousins showed up as a group costume of HVAC guys, at least that’s how they’d described it, complete with fake work orders and prop tool belts. They’d been cocky. Loud. Swaggering.

And as I watched the footage, one of the figures on the screen, the one in the Bill Clinton mask, tilted his head and barked out a muffled order in a voice I could have sworn I recognized from somewhere. I just couldn’t put my finger on where.

Then, the figure closest to the camera laughed, and every hair on my body stood on end.

My blood ran cold.

No fucking way.

He turned, revealing a height and build I knew far too well. Broad shoulders. Narrow waist. Lazy, cocky posture. I’d been underneath that body more times than I could count, back when I had terrible judgment and worse self-esteem.

Thayer. I knew it with every fiber of my being.

The demonic clown mask he wore made my skin crawl, but it fucking suited him.

I knew that silhouette. I knew that fucking ice cold laugh.

My stomach twisted violently. He’d been there.

Oh my God.

He’d been there when Knox’s family was murdered.

But… how had Knox not recognized him in the video?

They’d been best friends, after all. But maybe that was the problem – they’d been so close that Knox hadn’t ever really looked at him, in detail.

Not the way I had when I was obsessively, stupidly, convincing myself that I loved him.

And Knox had never seen Thayer and his cousins at that party, in the HVAC ‘costume’.

That was the clue I had, that he didn’t.

I stared at the screen, ran the video again, then just sat there and shivered.

Until I heard the footsteps on the front steps.

I barely had time to close the video player before the front door creaked open behind me.

My heart dropped.

“Shit.”

Knox stepped back inside. His keys jingled in his hand as he shut the door behind him.

“I forgot the contracts for the Mobile client,” he said, crossing the living room toward his office. “Printed them last night. Should’ve grabbed them earlier, but… It was just lucky I hadn’t gone too far before I realized…”

His voice trailed off when he spotted me at the laptop, sitting there at the island, my hands gripping the sides of it like I could crush the whole machine.

“You opened it?” he asked.

I nodded slowly.

“Yeah. Just… finished watching the clip.”

Knox paused at the hallway threshold. His expression softened, but only slightly.

“Wasn’t much to go on,” he said. “Couldn’t make out faces. No license plate on the van. Masks. Coveralls. Leather gloves. Plastered boots, all the same size. It’s all generic as hell. Pretty much a dead end.”

My vision swam. My heart beat so loud in my ears it almost drowned him out.

I forced myself to nod like I agreed. Like I wasn’t dying inside.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “Not much to go on.”

His eyes searched my face.

“You okay?”

I swallowed hard and faked a soft smile.

“Just… it’s really fucking heavy.”

He nodded slowly.

“I get it, believe me.”

He didn’t. He couldn’t. He had no idea that his former best friend had been one of the four guys who broke into Stonewood Manor the night his family was murdered.

He walked into his office and came back out a second later, contracts in hand. He crossed to the door again.

“I’ll be back around six,” he said, watching me for a beat longer than necessary.

“Okay. Be safe.”

“You, too.”

He nodded, and a second later the door clicked shut behind him.

And I sat there, frozen because I couldn’t tell him what I’d seen, when I looked at that video. Not yet.

If he knew what Thayer had done — what I suspected — he’d kill him. And I’d lose Knox forever.

I didn’t move for a long time.

Not until the sound of Knox’s truck faded down the street and the walls of his house finally stopped echoing with the sound of his footsteps.

I stared at the laptop screen, at the still minimized security footage folder, my hands clenched in my lap. My skin felt too tight, my blood roaring too loud in my ears. My mind kept circling the same thought, like a buzzard over a carcass.

Thayer.

I couldn’t know , not yet — but fuck, I knew . I recognized that silhouette. The casual lean. The fucking laugh . I’d heard it echo off red solo cups at a hundred college parties. I’d pressed my mouth to that jaw, dug my nails into that back.

I’d trusted him once. So had Knox, and Knox’s family had paid the price in blood.

My stomach turned.

Knox was trusting me now — with the biggest trauma of his life. And if I fucked this up, if I made one wrong move, the fallout wouldn’t just cost him his legacy. It would destroy him.

I pulled up the doc I’d started the night I told Knox I’d tell his family’s story, and titled it ‘ The Stonewood Slaughter’ .

It was a fresh start for me, for Knox, and for his family’s legacy. Next, I sent a one-line email to Nina: I’m out. Then I opened my texts and fired off a message to Knox.

Me

I’m going to have to interview you for the book. I’m starting work on it today, after reviewing the footage you left with me.

Me

Like we discussed, I’ll self-publish. No Nina. No angles. Just the truth, as approved by you.

My fingers hovered for a beat before I hit send.

This wasn’t about a paycheck anymore. It was about him, it was about the people he’d lost, and it was about uncovering the truth…

and maybe about finally exposing the Knox family’s murderers.

Murderers Knox had desperately wanted to find, for four years, murderers that the police still had no clues about.

I had to do it, even if one of the killers turned out to be the man I used to love. The man who broke me and made me terrified of relationships. The man I might just have to destroy– because if I could prove it, I’d have to act on that proof.

Part of me struggled to believe it of Thayer, no matter how much of an asshole he’d been in the end, but another part of me wasn’t really surprised.

Sickened, yes, but surprised, no. But I’d do it, I’d destroy Thayer without flinching, if that’s what it took to save Knox from doing something reckless and stupid.

Because if Knox knew who had murdered his family, then he’d go after them, and almost certainly kill them.

My phone buzzed where it sat on the counter beside Knox’s coffee mug.

Knox

Can I call you?

My heart stuttered.

I thumbed out a reply.

Me

Sure.

The phone rang.

“Hey,” I said, voice barely steady.

“Hey,” he echoed, warm and quiet on the other end. I could hear the soft hum of the road beneath his tires, the faint shuffle of air through the truck’s vents. “I didn’t want to text this. Didn’t want it to get buried. I know it’s a lot to ask.”

My fingers curled tighter around the edge of the counter.

He hesitated, then said, “I know I’ve said this before, but I need to say it again, need you to hear it loud and clear. I trust you, Ros.”

I pressed my hand to my stomach.

“You do? Are you really sure about this?”

“I wouldn’t have given you that USB drive if I wasn’t,” he said. “That footage… that’s everything I’ve got. And I know it’s not much. But if anyone can make sense of it — if anyone can tell this story the way it’s supposed to be told — it’s you.”

My chest ached.

“I’m trusting you with this,” he said, and I could picture the look on his face, the one he gave me when he was stripped bare but trying to play it cool. “All of it. The past. My family. The house. The story. You tell it your way, so long as it’s the truth. I just… I want you to have it.”

My breath hitched.

He didn’t know the truth. He couldn’t. And if he ever found out what I suspected — what I knew — I’d lose him because this wasn’t just a story anymore. It was a fuse, and I was holding the match. He’d commanded me to tell the truth, but how could I, without losing everything?

“I’ll do right by you,” I said softly.

“I know you will,” he replied, his voice full of quiet certainty.

The call ended.

And I didn’t know how to live with the weight of that trust.

Not now. Not with what I knew.