No one was more guilty than she.
As if there was nothing left for either of them to say, they continued to walk the rest of the way in silence. Even the cicadas seemed to surrender to the suffocating atmosphere.
“I changed my name.”
“What do you mean?”
“I went down to the courthouse and changed my last name,” Brook reiterated as she stared at the hanging pots on her porch where brown petals clung to dried stems. The once-vibrant flowers her mother had hung in May had withered week by week, their slow decline marking the days since everything had changed. “I’m now Brooklyn Sloane. I can't carry his name to college. I can't be Jacob Walsh's sister for the rest of my life.”
“I get it,” Scotty said softly. “I really do.”
His blue Camaro came back into view as they slowly passed by her house. She was strangely reluctant to end their time together. Despite the difficult conversation, it was nice just to be in someone else’s presence.
“When do you leave for college?” Scotty asked, reaching into his pocket for his keys.
“Monday.” Brook came to a stop on the sidewalk. A dandelion had managed to thrive in one of the numerous cracks, and she envied its strength. “What about you? I heard you got a job out on some oil rig.”
“Deep sea welder. I finally finished all my certifications, so I’m heading out to the West Coast next week. Mom’s not too happy about it, but I’ll be making good money. Oh, I almost forgot.”
Scotty leaned through the driver’s side window, fumbling for something inside. He finally straightened with some photos in his hand.
“Mom was cleaning out the junk drawer and found these old pictures. She was gonna throw them away, but I thought...”Scotty extended his hand, offering the photographs to Brook. “Maybe you'd want them. You know, from before.”
Before.
The word hung between them.
Before Jacob was revealed as a murderer.
Before Sally's blood soaked into the soil of the Herrings’ cornfield.
Before the Walsh family name became synonymous with evil in Morton, Illinois.
Brook hesitated before taking the photos. They were old Polaroids from years ago. Her fingers were numb as they closed around them, but she couldn’t stop her gaze from dropping to the top image. A group of boys stood proudly beside a half-built treehouse, their faces smudged with dirt, their eyes squinting against the sun. Jacob stood at the edge of the group, his smile not quite reaching his eyes even then.
She slowly moved the photo out of the way to stare at the second one. Jacob, Scotty, and Daryll stood next to their bikes in front of Scotty’s house. Jacob wasn’t even smiling at the person taking the picture.
It was the third photo that sent a shiver of unease up her spine. This one was of her at thirteen years old, braces and awkward limbs, standing beside Sally at someone’s backyard barbecue. They had their arms linked, laughing at something beyond the camera's frame. But it was how Jacob was staring at them from the background, partially obscured by an adult’s elbow. His face was clearly visible, though.
His gaze was fixed on Brook—not Sally— with an expression she had never noticed before but now recognized instantly.
Pure, undiluted hatred.
How had she overlooked such loathing? How many times had he stared at her with that same animosity when she hadn’t been paying attention?
The Jacob in this photo wasn't the brother who had helped her with homework or driven her to school. This was the Jacob who had used a blade to carve the flesh off Sally’s face and enjoyed every second of her pain.
“I never noticed that before,” Scotty pointed out quietly, staring down at the photographs in her hand. “The way he's looking at you.”
Brook swallowed hard, forcing air into her lungs that seemed to have forgotten how to function. She wanted to give the pictures back to him, but then again, she didn’t want anyone else to have them. She kept them tight in her grasp, not caring if they bent in half.
“Evil touches our lives every day, Scotty.” Brook held the truth of that statement in her hands. One that she hadn’t wanted to believe but had been forced to face when her brother had brutally murdered her best friend. “I just didn't realize it lived in the same house as me.”
2
Brooklyn Sloane
January 2026
