“That never happened. I didn’t get kicked out of school. I never thought of your dad as anything but a boss.” I hadn’t. I needed the paycheck. I saw how Patrick operated. How he collected women, no matter the age so long as they were legal. Even barely. Attraction never entered into the equation for me.
“I was there,” Aubrey shot back.
No doubt she’d seen some terrible shit in that house, but none of it included me. “You were a kid. In school.”
My argument sounded firm but stood on shaky ground. When the family disappeared, Aubrey had been on the verge of her senior year of high school. She’d been a kid in years but not brainpower, so she skipped grades as she fought being sent away to boarding school.
Not a nerd. Not a geek. A slick, quiet, always-watching genius immune to the bullying whispers of other kids and smart enough not to leave evidence when more than one of those kids experienced an “accident” in a classroom. Like when one suffered a severe burn in the science lab. The class that met in the same room, right after Aubrey’s independent study. Patrick liked to point out that no one could prove Aubrey did anything to her school nemesis.
Aubrey hummed now like she did back then. Pretended to think about whatever scheme brewed in her head. “I guess we’ll see very soon whose memory—mine or yours—is more accurate.”
She didn’t have to be specific. She meant about the fatal day fifteen years ago.
Gauntlet thrown.
“See you soon.” Aubrey took a step, then turned back to Jeremy. “Wait, what do I call you now? My uncle?”
Oh, shit.
“I can hardly wait to trade family stories.” Then she flitted away.
She didn’t get far. A detective stopped her. Whatever he said to her in a low voice that no one else could hear wiped the smirk right off her face.
Jeremy shook his head. “Does that trust you told me about mean we can kick her off the property?”
Look at Jeremy finding the one benefit of this Xavier-created mess. “It’s tempting but do you want her as an enemy?”
Jeremy shot me a knowing look. “Mom, it’s too late for her to be anything else.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Marni
Cam shook his head as he watched the messy Aubrey-Hanna takedown from enough of a distance to stay out of it but close enough to still hear most of it, including all the innuendos about Patrick and the information about where Jeremy stayed last night. “That was quite a show.”
A carefully crafted one. “Aubrey doesn’t know how to do anything but attract attention and destroy everything around her.”
His eyebrow lifted as he glanced at me. “She’s been gone for years. Still, if that’s a guess, it’s a good one.”
The stories Victoria used to tell made me dread running into Aubrey during a visit. One time Aubrey dropped whatever she was eating and stained her shirt. Noah laughed and made fun like little brothers do. Aubrey’s personality flipped. Rage oozed out of her. Intensified the longer she stood there, staring at Noah. I actually worried she might hit him. Then I went home and looked up the definition ofsociopathto see if it fit.
Aubrey lacked filters and empathy. She never showed fear, like when the snake in her science class mysteriously escaped its enclosure and a student panicked, which Aubrey found hysterical. Victoria asked Aubrey if she took the lid off the terrarium. Aubrey answered with a blank expression. Victoria said that’s what Aubrey did when challenged. She’d cock her head to the side, as if trying to assess what she could do before anyone came running to help.
But calculating Aubrey’s creepiness had to wait. We had bigger issues to handle. I nodded in the direction of the piece of machinery scooping dirt out of the once pristine garden. “What did they find that made them bring in all the reinforcements?”
“No one is talking but a friend texted and said bones.”
“Bonesas in more than one?” I knew about a single bone. Something small buried a few feet down. More like a piece of a bone. That’s what brought law enforcement running from every direction. Then the heavy equipment came, and I hadn’t stopped shaking since.
Cam fully faced me now. “Does more than one matter?”
“The size might. It could be a pet.” Something less terrifying than a human body.
The waves of nausea wouldn’t stop. It felt like the ground kept shifting under me. Like the lawn spun and whirled until all I could see was a blur of movement.
Leaning against Cam’s car wasn’t enough. I needed to sit. To inhale. Find a meditation that worked. Get further than eight on my practiced calming countdown from ten. “We should—”
Cam straightened. “Something’s happening.”
