Gabriel swallowed, then nodded. “As you know, Anne was at the bonfire with us and several others in our friend group. We were all drinking and having a good time. Well, at first.”
“Gabriel, stop talking,” Brianne said. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I do, though,” he replied. “I should have done it from the start.”
“I heard Anne was talking to you at the bonfire,” I said.
“Yes, and I’ll admit, there was some flirting between the two of us. After things got heated and everyone started arguing, I just wanted to get out of there, but Anne didn’t want to go home yet. She told me she was staying with her aunt, but her aunt was working a graveyard shift that night and wouldn’t be home for a while.”
“What did you say?”
“Given how late it was, I didn’t know where to take her, so I asked if she wanted to see an old, abandoned cabin. I had seen it once before, and I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought.”
Brianne rose halfway out of her chair. “Gabriel, enough. You will not say another word until I speak to you in private.”
He glanced over at her. “We’ve had twenty-five years. Anne hasn’t.”
Brianne slammed her fist against the table. “You are going to destroy everything!”
“It’s already been destroyed.”
She sank back into her chair, shaking, and I tried to get the conversation back on track. “You were saying you took Anne to the cabin.”
He nodded.
“It was a nice night, and I thought a walk through the woods was a good idea, so I parked, grabbed my flashlight and a couple of beers, and we started walking.”
“Were the two of you drunk?”
“We’d had a few drinks, so yeah, I’d say we were both tipsy enough to be careless.”
“Careless,” Brianne repeated, as if the word disgusted her.
“Anyway, we were walking toward the cabin, and I just, I had this urge to kiss her. I took her in my arms, leaned her against a tree, and I did. And just so you know, I asked for her permission before I did it. The kiss was mutual.”
Brianne’s eyes were wide with fury, but she said nothing.
“How long did you stay there?” I asked.
“Not long, a few minutes.”
“And then you kept walking?”
He nodded. “We made it to the cabin and went in. I was telling jokes, and she was laughing and carving her initials into the wood. We walked back outside and were checking out the area around the cabin. She was about a foot in front of me, and she turned around and reached out like she wanted to take my hand. And … and she stumbled. She tripped on something. A tree root or a rock. I don’t know. It all happened so fast. Next thing I knew, she’d fallen face first to the ground.”
As the story unfolded, I could see it in my mind, clear and concise. He could have been leaving things out or leading me astray and telling me the version he wanted me to believe, but the story was solid, and I had no reason to believe otherwise.
“What happened after she fell?” I asked.
“There was a boulder half buried in the dirt. She hit it so hard when she went down, I heard it.”
He stared at the table, grief-stricken and filled with remorse.
“I shone my flashlight on her,” he said. “And there was blood. So much blood.”
Brianne glared at him. “Think about our daughter, Gabriel. Think about what you’re about to put her through.”
“Talia is outside,” I said, my voice low. “I asked her to allow me a few minutes to talk to you first. I thought it might be easier.”
