Footsteps pounded in the hall. Police raced toward us. I could see the uniforms and the guns. They called for everyone to get down.
Well, shit.
Didn’t they all realize we didn’t have much in the way of real evidence against Lukas? That recording from Stella’s weird mom helped, but there was no way that lady would hold it together against slick lawyer boy. A lot of people saw a lot of individual pieces, but no one saw everything.
No, Lukas would talk his way into being governor before he did jail time.
Jeremy had a hand on Lukas’s arm, but Hanna’s hand was the one that mattered. She held that knife like an expert. Aimed it right at Lukas’s stomach.
“Give me a reason to kill you. Because I could do it and sleep just fine,” she whispered.
I wanted him to test her, but he relented. With a painful slowness, he put his hands in the air. The smart man finally recognized the extent of Hanna’s rage. He’d crossed a line when he touched her son.
Stella took a step forward and punched Lukas. Sent him flying backward.
Not how I wanted this little scene to end but I’d take it. “Game over.”
Chapter Seventy-Two
Hanna
The next three days passed in a blur of police questions, FBI agents, and press stepping into my personal space, demanding answers. Three bodies now found. One in the garden. Two in the pond. All located at Xavier’s house and not in the Tanner family home where the young family once resided.
Xavier moved his family with Lukas’s help, voluntary or not, and hid evidence. He ended up covering for the real killer.
The Tanner saga had been all over the news and online. True crime junkies lined up with their theories and conspiracies. Misinformation and lies ran rampant. The truth was enough of a horror story without adding pieces that didn’t fit.
Jeremy took a good decade off my life with that stunt from the bookcase. He was supposed to be hiding. Huddling. Waiting. Instead, he created the diversion that saved us all. He’d been listening, relaying information to the police, and biding his time until he could catch Lukas off-guard. Like a hero.
Lukas. That asshole sat in a prison cell proclaiming his innocence and insisting he’d been set up by a psychopath—Aubrey. The shifting timelines and everyone coming in and out that day made it easy for him to cause confusion. Victoria brought me to the house by pretending to be Patrick. She brought Marni to the house for revenge. Patrick was dead by then. Stella and Lukas had been to the house multiple times, together and apart. Xavier showed up at some point to clean up the mess and implicated Isabel in the process.
The fact Xavier left Lukas that car with the note suggested Xavier knew something, maybe about Aubrey, and convinced Lukas he had no choice but to help make the bodies disappear. That was the police theory anyway.
Initially, we were all threatened with prosecution for not being truthful during questioning years before about where we were and when that day. The statute of limitations had run on most of our lies to the police. Turned out the prosecutor needed our collective information to build a case against Lukas and connect all the dots, so we all got immunity deals. All except Marni, the only one who’d seen Patrick’s dead body and stayed quiet. She might still face charges, but her attorney doubted it since she was cooperating.
All of the admissions and discussions and no one understood how Noah fit in.
Today was the first time I was able to lure Stella out of her house and over to ours. She and Everly had many rocky days ahead. We all did. Lukas wasn’t going to let this matter die without more fuss and explosions. He wasn’t the type to give up that easily.
I looked around the family room and saw the human carnageborn out of fifteen years of lying and shame. We should exchange apologies. So manyshoulds and not one ounce of energy to offer even an obligatory regret. Marni stared at the fire. Stella poured tea while Jeremy played on his phone. We’d been together at the estate, like this, for almost an hour. No words could fix or explain everything that happened, so we didn’t try.
My phone buzzed. The police protection remained outside the gate as a courtesy. That would stop tomorrow, but I enjoyed the sheen of assistance while I had it. This text referenced a visitor. One I didn’t want to see, but Marni might need him.
I got up and went to the door before the bell rang. Cam and I walked in silence back to the family room. He had everyone’s attention the minute he walked in the door.
He didn’t wait for anyone to ask. “The body they found in the pond late yesterday afternoon was a younger boy. Probably Noah. The DNA tests will confirm but it looks like the entire Tanner family is now accounted for.”
“One alive. Three dead,” Marni said.
“Does Aubrey know?” I didn’t want to be the one to call her. That had to be someone else’s job.
“The police are delivering the news now.” Cam fidgeted with a bunch of papers in his hands. “There will be a few more days of forensics, then you’ll have your yard back.”
Jeremy glanced out the window. “It’s really weird to think of this as our house.”
Over the last few days the walls felt less confining. I planned to brick up those damn passageways and I doubted there was enough sage in the world to cleanse the place fully, but the air nolonger choked me. “I asked if there was amurder houseloophole in the trust to sell the house early and no.”
“That’s not funny but...” Stella laughed. “Sorry.”
