Page 88 of Behind These Four Walls

Bennett retched. “Oh my God.”

Jackson popped in a stick of gum. “This is your reality, son. Victor isn’t your father. And if he ever finds out, you’ll both be out on your asses. There’s no way he’s keeping you when you played the oldest trick in the book on him, Brooke.” He looked at her pityingly. “That’s why we need to make sure no one can ever find her.”

Brooke was desperate, caught between the man she relied on and the child she loved more than anything. “Listen to me. Victor loves you. He would never disown you. You are his son in every way that counts.”

Jackson scoffed. “Maybe if he hadn’t just heard you were involved in Edie’s disappearance. But now? The moment he finds out the truth, he will end you, all of us.”

“Shut up!” Bennett yelled. Bennett’s breath came sharp and ragged, on the cusp of a panic attack. “Both of you, just shut the hell up. Let me think.”

“There’s no more time. They will start looking. We need to move the evidence and get our stories straight.” Jackson stepped closer, and Bennett backed away in a sort of dance. When they were side by side, in a standoff, their likeness couldn’t be denied. “First Edie. Then Victor.”

Jackson gave Bennett a lasting look before picking up the shovel Bennett had rejected and shoving it hard against Bennett’s chest. The force knocked Bennett back a couple of steps, and he realized Jackson wouldn’t let them leave. Gingerly he took the shovel from this new man he’d never seen.

Bennett’s stomach twisted. “But I didn’t—I wasn’t even there!” His legs locked; he was unable to step toward Edie’s grave.

Jackson snapped, “But you set everything in motion.” His patience was gone. “You sicced your friends on her. You didn’t take her to the family or tell Victor when he returned from his trip the next day. It was lucky I overheard your call to your friends and followed you because you were acting odd and heard you tell your friends where to take her. What were you going to do about her at the Abbott farm, hmm? I spared you that.”

Jackson waited for an admission that Bennett was too ashamed to make.

“Right. I cleaned it up for you. I made sure you and your idiot friends never had to face the consequences. Like with that accident when you were kids. Like with Edie. But now? Now you both need to do your part. We are in this together. Now move.”

Chapter Sixty-Five

Isla

Present Day

Before Bennett could take another step, a new voice cut through the night. “Not the family reunion you expected.”

They whipped around as a flashlight flicked on, and Isla emerged from the shadows and the cover of the trees.

Jackson’s incredulity flickered to calculation. His eyes narrowed as he searched the woods from which she’d emerged. “How did you find us?”

“Tracking devices,” she said, waving her glowing cell phone. Thanks to Myles, who’d planted them after she’d given them to him the night he took her to the Red Roof.

Jackson snatched the shovel from Bennett’s trembling hands and took a deliberate step toward Isla. His intention was perfectly clear, and danger radiated from him.

“I heard it gets easier after the first time,” Isla said. “Is it true?”

“If you weren’t so stupid, following us alone, I’d be impressed with your courage,” Jackson said, raising the shovel. “Thought you were smarter than that.”

A sharp crack of twigs and the crunch of dry leaves and underbrush stopped him mid-step.

Figures emerged from the shadows—first a mass, then distinct shapes splintering off as they stepped into the moonlight. Flashlights flicked on, one by one. Myles. Victor. Dixon. Even Lawrence bringing up the rear. They were still in their tuxes, unlike Jackson, who had dressed to get dirty.

Jackson retreated, moving closer to Brooke and Bennett, who had been like deer caught in headlights from the moment Isla had made herself known. Their faces as blank as their minds. But not Jackson’s, Isla thought. His mind was churning. He was always two steps ahead and could slip in and out undetected, as he’d done for years. She hoped that for once he wasn’t ahead of her and that her gamble would pay off.

“What did you do?” Victor’s voice blasted through the night as he stepped through the clearing, closing the distance.

Jackson quietly dropped his hands to his sides, the tip of the shovel sinking into the dirt.

Myles said, “The police are not far behind. If we hadn’t gone ahead like Isla said, what were you going to do, Jackson? Bennett?”

“Is it all true?” Victor’s voice held hope; what he’d walked in on because Isla had asked him back at the house to let her show him was too unfathomable. Isla knew his feelings because she felt the same.

Jackson’s calm was eerie. “You already heard it all, Victor. Why rehash?”

“All these years?” Victor asked, focusing on his wife and son. “You’ve been lying all these years and colluding with him under my nose. In my home. Bennett isn’t ...” His voice broke, the enormity of their betrayal choking him, and he looked away.