Page 87 of You'll Never Know

“What’s the matter?” she says when she sees my face.

“My dad … he’s …” The tears come before I can finish.

She glides across the floor and pulls me into her arms. I cry for an hour.

I don’t move the rest of the day.

I don’t leave the house for a week.

And I mourn. Avery doesn’t leave me once, even when I tell her to, even when I say I know this is too much. She stays right there with me the entire time and that’s when I know I truly love her.

Chapter 44

BAILEY

“What’s happening!” I shout as Reed whips forward and slams to the earth.

Zane still has the binoculars to his eyes, staring intently through the windshield.

“Hey!” I slap his shoulder, but he ignores me.

“Watch.”

I raise my binoculars. There’s nothing to see at first—just the meadow swaying in the breeze, the grass rippling. Then I spot it: a shrub rising in the shape of a man.What the hell?I blink and try to make sense of the image. It’s someone wearing one of those camouflaged army suits, the kind made to look like leaves and grass. The man’s face is concealed by a hood covered in foliage. I can’t make out his features, but I can make out the gun in his hand—the long black rifle he used to shoot Reed in the back.

I sweep the binoculars back toward Reed’s still form. He’s lying prone with both arms splayed to his sides, his right leg cranked at an odd angle. Beside his head is a dark splatter of blood.

This shouldn’t be happening.

Reed is supposed to be arrested. He’s supposed to be paraded through the news as a callous, reprehensible con man who targets andexploits vulnerable women. He’s supposed to be sentenced to decades in prison and live out the best years of his life in a cold gray box alone like his dad did before him. This—whatever just happened—isn’t the plan. It’s something else entirely.

I watch as the man in the camo suit stalks through the grass and draws closer to Reed. It feels like everything is unfolding in slow motion as he climbs the hill and pulls out a pistol. One he raises and aims at Reed’s back.

Crack! Crack!

Reed jerks twice in response. The gun rises toward the back of his head, but I’m already leaping out of the car with a scream.

“STOP! DON’T!”

The man whips around, searching for my voice. From this far away, he looks terrifying, like a creature from the earth—something born without a face.

A radio squelches to my left as Zane speaks. “No more gunfire. It’ll draw attention. Just finish the job.”

The man holsters the gun and then pulls something from his waist and brings it to his lips. “Ten-four.”

I recognize the voice.Sean’svoice.

I turn toward Zane who’s watching me from the other side of the car. He waves at my open door. “Get in.”

“You weren’t supposed to kill him,” I say in a daze.

“Just get in.” His voice is sharper than normal. Cold. I hesitate. We should be hearing police sirens by now.

Bees buzz through my chest, and I take a step back.

He shakes his head. “Don’t.”

“Why not?” I manage.