Evie starts up the stairs.
I walk out of the kitchen to meet her, and she’s paler than pale, eyes wide and full of fear.
My gaze locks to her with such focus, it takes the subtle shift of movement before I realise my father stands in the corridor, waiting for her to finish coming upstairs.
He locks eyes with her, ignoring me. “I thought I made myself perfectly clear.”
“You did,” I agree in the calmest voice I can manage. “Fifty thousand dollars’ worth. It’s almost like you think there’s something to hide.”
Evie manages the last few steps on shaking legs and I reach for her, clasping her hand and moving her behind me as I face off with my dad. She gives my fingers a squeeze and I return the gesture, taking strength from her support.
Meanwhile, my father arches an eyebrow, the only hint of expression. “Does this mean you’ve come clean about your cache of secrets?”
I hate the dismissive way he cuts his gaze back to mine. Hate that he’s been intimate with my girl, a thin sweat of green to her gleaming bronze. “If you mean the secret that you had sex with an underage girl, yes. She did.”
Blaine flicks a hand in dismissal. “She was well past sixteen.”
Like that makes it alright for a fifty year old man to fuck a teenager just because he threw money at her.
Isn’t that what you’re doing? Paying for her company? Like father, like son.
I wrestle my head back on track. “The bar is eighteen if you’re paying, or do you think you can convince a jury she was doing it out of the kindness of her heart?”
“A jury.” Blaine snorts and the door from the garage opens again, Vale emerging. Evie gasps and moves farther into my shadow. Her fear adds to my discomfort.
“It’s just a phrase,” she assures him, her voice high and tight. “Nobody’s going to report you.”
She squeezes my hand as though hoping I’ll agree with her, but my mind is caught, watching Vale’s knowing smirk, feeling the fear pulse from her body in waves.
“I have the photographs you wanted,” Vale says to Blaine in an obvious piece of staged theatre. “Are we doing it here?”
“Doing what?” I ask and immediately know I should have kept my mouth shut. This is part two of whatever plan they’re hatching, ready when part one failed.
“It’s about Ant,” Evie says, her soft voice pleading. “He was friends with Addie.”
I turn to her with a frown. “I know that, already.”
When I face forward again, my dad tilts his head to the side, his eyes fixing to her with the stern expression I know so well.The cave creature who lives within me lurches forward, twisting and growling, its sharp claws digging into my bones, using them as a ladder to clamber up from the depths, teeth glinting in the light.
“Did you tell him the rest, Evie? Did you tell him where your brother was the night my angel killed herself? Did you tell her who she turned to for help?”
You like it. I know you like it.
“Stop.”
The word barely makes a sound, escaping my throat like the expelled breath of a dying man when the mortician rolls him over on the slab.
“She was an addict,” Evie says, tugging at my arm. “They were trying to help each other.”
And my father’s mocking voice, “Is that his story?” His eyes move to me, keeping tabs on how his revelations are landing.
“It’s not a story,” she says, bristling. “It’s the truth.”
“Truth is such a strange concept, isn’t it? Means completely different things to different people.”
Vale opens the leather satchel he’s carrying, pulling out a photograph and letting it float to the floor.
Addie is in Ant’s arms. Shockingly thin. Greasy hair falling in straggly waves around her face, so long the curls are almost pulled straight. I can’t think how I ever saw her in Evie; now all I see are the differences. The harsh lines around my sister’s mouth, the early ageing of addiction; the dark circles under her eyes reeking of ill health. Her mouth is pressed in a thin line, pulled down at the corners when, even while she’s frowning, Evie’s lips curl upwards. Like there’s always a part of her—even buried deep—having fun.
