Watching Hanna dig in the mud, realizing why she’d dropped to her knees, frantic and out of breath, ripped through my resolve to stay aloof and unaffected by all things Tanner-related. Believing the family was dead and being smacked in the face with the reality of their loss turned out to be two very different things.
Mom shook her head. “It can’t be.”
I held on to my patience. She deserved to grieve. “Mom, maybe you should get some rest.”
We’d been to the police station. Mom long ago provided samples for a DNA match that never came. Now her body might help provide the connection between the remains and the missing. I doubted Aubrey offered up blood samples to help identify the bones.
While we were out, Lukas came by, as promised, and told the nanny to go home. Everly had been in bed for hours. The urge to run upstairs and hug her nearly overwhelmed me. Only Mom’s agitation kept me downstairs, trying to hold a civil conversation and act like the rational grown-up in the room.
“Xavier didn’t hurt his son.” Isabel shook her head. “Patrick shouldn’t be buried at Xavier’s house.”
Xavier hid so much. But his son’s body? Unless he killed Patrick or the bones weren’t Patrick’s. There were too many unknowns.
“There’s nothing we can do tonight.” Lukas’s voice sounded tight. Not tired but controlled. It matched the stiffness in his body. With his suit jacket off and dress shirt sleeves rolled up, he looked ready to walk back into the office and do a few more hours of work.
“Aubrey.” Mom finally stopped zipping around the kitchen and plopped down on a breakfast-bar stool. “She can’t be allowed to stay silent. She knows something.”
Lukas snorted. “Clearly.”
Not a helpful response. I didn’t need two of them, on edge, ready to fire off at Aubrey without more information. Her ongoing silence both helped me and infuriated me. I waited for the next bit of bad news to slither out, and it would. The police would be all over her now.
Word was the FBI viewed the case as a priority again, which meant Aubrey lived in a ticking countdown to divulging what she knew. She was exactly the type to throw the spotlight on everyone else to avoid it landing on her.
Time to employ some of that reason I went to school to learn. “We should—”
“Stop.” Mom’s apparent shock exploded in a ball of anger. “How are you so calm?”
“I’m not.” Breaking down would be a relief. Letting go, getting it all out, no matter how damaging, burst the balloon of tension choking me. But I wasn’t the only one in this mess. The two people I cared most about—the one standing in front of me and the one asleep upstairs—needed my strength. The blowback on Lukas’s career. The emotional destruction to Everly as her world imploded. Both weighed on me.
No, the risk was too great, which meant Aubrey needed to be controlled.
“We have Hanna racing around, causing trouble. Aubrey’s sneaking about. No one is answering questions. And now this.” The air seemed to run out of Mom as she ran down her list. “It’s Patrick. Those... he’s been right under our feet all this time.”
“You don’t know that,” Lukas said.
“I do.” Her sharp defiance bounced around the room.
The resulting silence screeched through me. “Mom? Let’s take a minute and—”
She threw up her hands. “I’m going upstairs. I can’t possibly go to my house all alone. Not and feel safe.”
Great. That meant she planned to be my problem. She’d stay here and spend every spare minute coming up with plans toexposeHanna and run off Aubrey. Mom had already declared she couldn’t be expected to work. She was about to become my full-time job, and I had no idea how to stop this rolling disaster.
For tonight at least, I gave in. “You can take the guest room.”
“That’s where I’ll be until Hanna hands back my inheritance and Aubrey... She should be in prison.” Mom stomped off after making that pronouncement.
“She’s not wrong about the upheaval.” Lukas sat on the stool Mom just vacated. “We’re all getting sucked into this mess.”
“Okay.” I didn’t ask questions because part of me didn’t want to know more.
“I got a call while you were talking to the detectives with your mom.”
This was bad. Really bad. I knew before he said another word. His clenched body, that expression, shouted defeat.
“The governor’s office.” Lukas linked his fingers, then separated them again. Placed his palms on the counter. Stared at the backs of his hands. “Our meeting is off tomorrow.”
A crushing blow. To him. To me with my gnawing guilt, which I’d hoped would vanish or at least abate once his life shifted to the next level. The professional one in line with his dreams.
