Brianne spun toward me, wild-eyed, voice raised. “What did you say to her?”
“She knows the two of you were with Anne the night she died, but not much more than that.” I faced Gabriel. “Continue.”
“As soon as I realized what had happened to Anne, I knelt beside her,” he said. “She looked at me and tried to say something, and then she closed her eyes, and she was … she was gone.”
“And you panicked.”
Gabriel’s composure broke. “I was eighteen. I was stupid. I was terrified. I thought if I told the police, they’d make up their own story and say I raped her and then killed her. I thought of my parents. I thought of my life ending before it even started. I thought of everyone making me out to be some kind of monster.”
“And that mattered more to you than the truth. Did you rape her?”
“No, of course not.”
“But you had sex.”
“We did, and before you accuse me of leaving that part out, I was just trying to get through the story first, and then I was going to circle back to the sex part.”
“What did you do when you realized she was dead?”
“I … I wrapped my shirt around her wound to get the blood to stop, then I scooped her up in my arms and took her back inside the cabin. There was a bed inside. A metal frame. The mattress was rotten. I pulled the mattress up and I slid her under the bed.”
My stomach lurched, a combination of sadness and unease. “You hid her.”
He flinched. “I didn’t think of it as hiding. I thought of it as … I don’t know. I thought I would put her there until I figured out what to do next.”
“Then what happened?”
“I went home. I washed the blood off my hands and scrubbed my body until my skin burned.”
I pictured him back then, young and terrified, choosing silence over truth. And I pictured Anne’s family, waiting for a loved one they’d never see again.
“What happened the next day?” I asked.
“I grabbed a shovel, and I went back. There was a hole beneath the bed, toward the top. The floorboards were loose in one spot. I dug it several feet deeper, and I put her in it. Then I covered it up, put some of the boards back, and I left.”
“The cabin has been torn down,” I said. “Found a few bone fragments, but nothing more. If you’re telling me the truth, it means at some point, you moved her.”
He nodded. “Years passed. I got older. I tried to forget, tried to focus on work, my marriage, our daughter, but the regret stayed with me, locked in my head, a constant reminder of what I’d done.”
Brianne’s lips trembled, but she stayed quiet.
“Several years ago, I came across a unique tree not far from our property.”
“The one shaped like a heart,” I said, “where two trees have fused to become one.”
He raised a brow. “You know?”
“I do.”
“I discovered it while I was walking along the creek. I saw it from the right angle, and it felt like a sign, like it had been put there to mock me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized Anne deserved better than having her remains beneath an old cabin. She deserved a place that wasn’t …”
Gabriel pushed his chair back and stood, his body shaking.
“I know what I did,” he said. “And I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to confess it. But I’m telling you the truth when I say I had nothing to do with Audrey’s murder. I loved that girl. I would never do anything to?—”
I raised a hand, stopping him.
“After hearing your story, I know you wouldn’t. But you,” I said, turning toward Brianne. “I believe you would.”
