“What do you know, Archie?” Her voice is ragged, furious. “What the fuck do you know?”
She’s shoving at him, hands on his chest, her eyes wild. Hudson runs up, worried as to why Dale is yelling at Archibald like a rabid animal, demanding to know about my brother as though she has some claim on him.
Archie grabs her wrists to steady her, but she’s shaking with rage. “You’re always three steps ahead. Always smirking. Tell me right now what the hell you know.”
“We can discuss this once the guests leave,” Archie says, motioning to the people still trickling out, but his voice is too quiet, too practiced. Underneath, you hear the plea in his words.
Not here. Not now.
But still she pounds at his chest, demanding answers.
“You’re lying,” Dale spits, tearing away from him. “You know something. You always know something.”
The party is a corpse around us now. No more music. No more laughter. Guests are pouring out of the house like vultures in designer gowns, drawn to the rot but too afraid to get close.
Hayden pulls me into his chest, arms wrapping around me like a fortress. I bury my face into him because I don’t know where else to go.
“I’ve got you,” he says again.
“I don’t need you,” I grit out venomously, wanting to shove him away and find solace in his arms at the same time.
My chest feels like it’s caving in, breath caught somewhere between a sob and a scream, but through the noise, through the sting of tears and the white static in my skull, one thing cuts through with brutal clarity.
It was never a murder.
Ford is alive.
And Hayden knew. I have no proof, but just as certain I am that my father killed my mother, I know Hayden knew my brother was alive. Maybe Dexter, too.
I stare at the ring, the monogrammed shirt, the careful way it was all arranged.
I turn to Hayden, hands shaking.
“You knew,” I whisper.
He doesn’t deny it; his silence says everything.
“You knew,” I say louder, shooting up and out of his arms, shaking as I cower away from the arms I so desperately want to fall into, voice trembling with rage. “You’vealwaysknown. He isn’t dead. You’ve been letting me drown in this lie, letting me mourn him like a fool, and you’veknown.”
The room is now empty, all the guests are gone, and my shout echoes throughout the room.
“I didn’t lie to you,” he says calmly. “I withheld what you weren’t allowed to know.”
My hand slams into his chest. “You let me think he was gone. And all this time, he’s been what? Underground? Hidden like some Brotherhood secret? A ghost in your sick little game?”
“They aren’t being honest, Martine, they know something!” Dale shouts, eyes full of tears, and for the first time, I can honestly believe that Ford meant something to her. Means something.
His eyes flash. “Of course we know something!” he yells, grabbing me by the throat in one fluid moment. Forcing me to choke on a gasp, barely able to gather my breath as.
“Then what was it? Some rite of passage? A test? You expect me just to understand that my brother is alive and you’ve known all along?”
“It has to do with the Brotherhood,” he says, finally. “You think I had a choice?”
I stare at him, the words sinking in like poison.
“So you’re saying the Brotherhood made him do it.”
“Something like that, yes.”
