I pinch the bridge of my nose, squeezing my eyes shut, the explosive boat fire flooding my senses all over again. “I… I don’t know.”
He didn’t do it on purpose. Not that time. He couldn’t have.
But my stomach feels sick anyway.
“Have you ever considered that you might be in…denial?”
“I’ve been through plenty of therapy,” I snap, shaking my head. “I’m worried about my brother. I don’t think what happened was just some ruthless murder. He’s not like that. He’s not a monster. The Marines did this?—”
“Jenna,” Parker cuts me off sternly, “He always gives a reason, doesn’t he?”
“Thank you for your help,” I don’t take the bait. “Let me know if you find anything more on Calvin Bradford or Mark Robbins.” I hang up before Parker can say anything else, and then toss my phone to the couch.
They’re going to find him, if I don’t.
I push myself to standing and grab my keys. I shove my arms through the sleeves of my coat and grab my bag, as the panic rises in my chest.
‘You don’t need to have answers to everything,’Cade’s voice bounces around my head, rent-free.‘Sometimes freak things just happen. Sam would want you to move on.’
“Not if you killed him,” I mumble under my breath, the accusation feeling as insane as saying he killed my adoptive father. I mean, yeah, I guess he spanked us. I guess he yelled sometimes.
But Cade wouldn’t have done that on purpose.
Sometimes freak things just happen.
‘Karma is a bitch,’Cade just keeps fucking talking in my head.
I rip the apartment door open and step out into the cold, not even caring the way it burns my cheeks. I pull the door shutbehind me and clutch my bag as I make a dash for my car. I slide into the driver’s seat, and start the car, my breath fogging the air in front of my face.
The roads are as empty as I feel inside, and the headlights throw back nothing but vapor and the occasional cat-eye gleam from something with more backbone than me. I don’t let off the gas, until I’m at the edge of the Bradford Tree Farm property and kill the lights, parked at the same side gate as before.
You better fucking be here, Cade.
It’s full dark as I climb out, the moon buried somewhere behind a quilt of clouds, but the world is still lit—indirect, blue gray, the kind of light that makes everything look staged and every tree look like a shadow person waiting to split my skull. I cinch my jacket, lock the car, and immediately regret how loud the beep is in this kind of silence.
I move down the tree line, shoes smooshing in the mud, knees bent to minimize the sound. Part of me expects to be jumped at some point, but nothing happens as I make it all the way to the cabin, where I think I saw my brother.
I stop a couple hundred feet from the back porch, the one that has my brother’s jacket still on the hook outside. I narrow my eyes, squinting at the warm glow from inside, which illuminates the porch.
And then the light flickers.
My heart jumps to my throat as a shadow casts across the porch. I hold my breath and my position, shrinking into the pine tree I’m standing beside.
Please be Cade.
But as the door creaks open, it isnotmy brother who walks out. It’s the third man and a hugedog, who immediately starts baying in my direction.
Holy Hounds of Baskerville.
Fear clamps down on my chest, and I stumble back into the trees, completely unprepared for this plot twist.
“What is it, Gunner?” the man’s voice comes out with an authority that sends a shiver down my spine. “What’s out there?”
I watch in horror as he leans forward, his hand on the snap of the leash, the only thing preventing the dog from barreling after me.
Oh fuck.
My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I reach for it, desperate to make it shut up before this dog eats me alive. I can’t even let myself blink right now.
