Page 22

Chapter 21

Trey

Juliet is frozen beside me. I shake her shoulder, but even that doesn’t pull her out of her trance. From whatever place her mind has taken her to.

“Tell me what’s wrong.” Desperation makes my voice quake. I’ve never seen her like this. Not even in the moments she thought Ned Miller might kill her.

She clasps her shaking hands together, but she can’t tear her eyes away from the house.

“This is where Brandon brought us that night.” Her voice is so small, almost inaudible.

I can’t have heard her right. Here? The house where I grew up, the center of her nightmares? No . No, I can’t have gone this long without knowing. Without knowing all the atrocities my father committed within these walls. “Brandon brought you here?”

She nods.

I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me. Anchoring her back to this moment, here with me. Safe. “Are you sure ?”

Her beautiful blue eyes water as she nods. “Yes. I remember the bridge. I remember the house and the woods and the grass and the driveway. I remember the rooms where they took us.” The words wobble, her entire body on the verge of a sob. “I remember the creek, the feeling of the water on my foot. Your mom, Trey?—”

She breaks, a sob racking her body as she collapses into me, her hair reeking of smoke and death. I hold her as her shoulders shake.

“What about her?” My heart thunders with the question, unsure whether I want to know the answer.

“She’s the one who saved me that night. I’m sure it was her. She had green eyes just like yours. I never thought ...” She shakes her head. She never thought that the woman who saved her that night could’ve been my mother. “She got me off the island, and that’s why she died. He killed her for it.”

I pull Juliet onto my lap, rocking gently as I cradle her. So soft and vulnerable and fractured in my hands.

A lump lodges in my throat that I can’t swallow down. I knew it. I knew my father killed my mother. But I didn’t think I’d ever learn why.

She sacrificed herself for Juliet. She kept my little demon safe, at the cost of her own life.

Somehow, beyond the grave, she made sure to bring us together. We were meant to find each other. To give each other the answers we both needed.

Juliet’s tears soak my shoulder. “If she hadn’t been killed, your father wouldn’t have met Rachel. You wouldn’t have been abused. You were hurt because of me.”

I squeeze her to me as hard as I can without hurting her. The pain in her voice nearly fractures me. “None of this shit happened because of you. None of this is your fault.” My heart breaks that she could believe that for even a second. Tears blur my vision, and I can barely choke the words out. “I’m proud my mother gave her life for you. For the girl I love.”

She sobs into my neck, clutching me like I’m her life raft. And she’s mine. Since we met, we’ve kept each other from drowning.

We keep each other afloat. Alive.

“She was never going to survive that house,” I whisper. “He hurt her. Over and over again. He would’ve killed her someday, and he didn’t need a reason.”

My father killed Autumn. Intended to kill Juliet. The housekeeper, the gardener, the tutor, the nanny ? —

Who knows how many others he’s killed.

I’ve always known my father was a monster—but I never realized he was a predator too.

That’s why he didn’t care what Rachel did to me. That’s why he allowed it to continue, right under his nose. Because they shared the same sickness.

This is not my home. It never has been. This is a house of horrors.

As Juliet’s sobs ebb to hiccuping gasps, I cradle the back of her head. Her dark hair soft beneath my palm, as soft and fragile as she was the night my father hunted her. The night he tried to take her life. “We can turn around right now. I don’t want you to face him again if he shows up.”

Odds are, he’s still monitoring me. He probably already knows I’m here. Only a matter of time before he shows up.

I won’t let him get his hands on Juliet.

She pulls away from my shoulder and shakes her head. “No. We’ve come this far. We’ll plant the thumb, call the police, and frame him, just like you planned. I’ll tell them who he is, what he did.”

As much as I want to take her back in the opposite direction as far away from him as we can get, she’s right. This may be our last chance. He needs to pay for what he’s done. All of it. Far more than I know. The bodies have to be on this island somewhere. He’s too sick to not want to hang onto his trophies.

“You need to hide in here,” I tell her. “I’ll stash the thumb, call the police, and come right back out. Then we’re getting the fuck off this island, and we’re never coming back.”

To my surprise, Juliet doesn’t object. Only nods as she slides off my lap and back into the passenger seat, numb as dried tears stain her cheeks. She doesn’t want to go inside either. Too terrified to face her nightmares all over again.

“I’ll be right back.” I squeeze her hand with the promise. “I love you.”

“I love you,” she whispers, the words fragile and broken.

He did this to her. My father. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate him more, I find out what he’s done to the one person I’ve loved since my mother. The only person I’ve ever loved like this.

When I finally let her go, I rush into the house, Brandon’s severed thumb burning a hole in my pocket as I aim for the basement?—-

And stop dead when an airy, sickeningly familiar voice calls my name. “Trey!”

I turn slowly to find a brunette perched on the kitchen island, legs crossed under her short skirt.

A half-empty bottle of wine sits beside her, glass clutched in her hand as she brings the wide rim to her mouth. Her pink lipstick smears the glass and turns my stomach.

The trench coat Juliet mentioned is tossed over a stool. Shoulder-length brown hair, pale skin, brown eyes, freckles across her cheeks, a mole at the corner of her eye. A tight white dress splashed in a pink pattern she mistook for figure-flattering.

Next to the hand she uses to prop herself up are two small plastic bags. Each with a severed thumb inside.

My heart drops. She found them. She fucking found them.

I brace for her to attack me. Scream at me. Something. But all she does is continue to sip wine with a coy smile like she fucking lives here.

“I’ve missed you,” she purrs, and I want to rip out her throat. Destroy her voice box so she can’t ever speak another word to me.

After all these years, I’m finally face-to-face with her again. The woman who haunts my nightmares. Who took the vulnerable, fractured, angry kid my father had already created and shattered him.

Rachel .

I lean against the wall, arms crossed, even as my heart hammers. “He kept you alive. I’m surprised.”

Her smile spreads, and my stomach revolts at the sight. “Why? You remember how good I am.”

Bile stirs in my gut. The last thing I need is an image of her and my father in bed together. Her willingly fucking a man she knows killed his wife and hurt so many others. “I remember how sick you are.”

Rachel’s tinkling giggle is like something out of a horror movie. “Oh, please. You came like a faucet with me.”

Bile rises, threatening to spew out. She’s repulsive. She deserves to be burned and buried with the rest of them.

She ditches the wine glass for the bottle, tipping it up and throat bobbing as she gulps. Then she has the gall to wink at me. As if I won’t rip the lid from her eye.

“Why the hell did he let you come back?”

She shrugs. “After your little incident, he needed somebody to keep an eye on you. I’m the one he trusted most. And he and I eventually started to miss each other, of course. No one fucks quite like your father does. I almost enjoy fucking him as much as I enjoy fucking you.”

My stomach turns so violently, I nearly gag.

I straighten from the wall, tipping my chin up. I’ve fantasized for years about giving her a piece of my mind, about confronting her for every sick thing she did to me. Now, I’ve finally gotten my chance. “Touching you disgusted me. You made me want to rip off my skin.”

Her mouth sours, eyes darkening.

“Was the pregnancy even real?”

“Of course it was,” she spits. “I showed you the test.”

“Did you terminate it like he said?”

What if that was a lie too? What if a kid with my DNA is out there somewhere? The thought makes my head swim, chest constrict?—

She barks a sharp, mirthless laugh. “Obviously. I wasn’t pushing out a fucking baby.”

Relief washes through me. “Good. You’d be a shitty mother.”

Rachel’s eyes narrow in the split second before she aims the empty wine bottle at my head and hurls it.

The glass shatters on the wall beside me and I duck out of the way.

But she doesn’t move to attack me. Only uncrosses her legs and swings them like a schoolgirl flirting with her crush. “So what the hell are you doing with that little whore?”

“Don’t talk about her like that.” My teeth clench so hard, my jaw’s on the verge of snapping. She’s been following me and Juliet around, seething with envy. Waiting for her moment to strike. “Why did they bring her here? How did Brandon even know my father?”

All of it is a scattered puzzle that I still haven’t put together. Juliet deserves to know the answers, and clearly, Rachel knows plenty.

“You still haven’t figured that out?” She smirks. “Your father and Brandon were fraternity brothers. A dumb slut at one of their parties accused Brandon of some bullshit, tried to press charges. Your father and grandad got him out of trouble. Your grandad had the police department in his pocket. She should’ve known that before she tried starting shit with one of Charles’s friends. She learned her lesson.”

My mind buzzes. Brandon and my father have been hurting innocent people for a long time. “He told you all that?”

“He didn’t have to. I was at that party.” She flashes a winning smile that makes the knot in my gut coil tighter. “Delta Gamma.”

Of course Rachel was a sorority girl. Probably followed my father around like the puck bunnies follow me.

“Brandon’s life would’ve been fucked if it hadn’t been for your father. So he did whatever your father wanted. Eventually, Brandon brought him girls he coached or met online. Girls no one would care if they were never seen again. Forgettable girls.”

Fury boils through every limb. “Juliet isn’t forgettable.”

The smirk slips from Rachel’s lips. “She’s getting you involved in murder. She’s going to ruin your life, you know.”

“The only people who tried to ruin my life are you and him.” My fists shake with barely contained rage. “What about Craig and Ned? Why were they here that night?”

Rachel rolls her eyes, tired of my questions. “Because men will pay good money for girls, and your father knows how to run a lucrative business. He’s much smarter than you realize. Did you actually think you would get away with pinning murders on your father with no motive?”

“They’re all connected to him. They were all in this house, doing despicable things to innocent people.” I shrug. “Maybe he was tipped off that one of them was going to turn on him.”

Rachel snickers. “You haven’t changed much, huh? Just bigger muscles now.” Her gaze rakes over me and it’s like being dipped in a vat of oil.

“Why didn’t he marry you?” My question throws her. Rachel’s coy facade slips away. “If you met in college, why did he pick my mother over you?”

Her mouth sours. “He didn’t. I rejected him.”

A lie. The truth is a bitter pill she refuses to swallow. How much of what she’s told me can I believe?

I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. Craig, Ned, and Brandon are dead.

The only monsters left are my father and the one in front of me.

“Where is my father?”

Her gaze drifts to the window, the smirk lifting her mouth, lips smeared with slimy pink lipstick. “Probably taking care of your little girlfriend.”