“I remember. I always have them,” she says, smiling, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Her hands constantly fiddling with something.
“Just in case I visit.”
She laughs and shakes her head, looking at me sadly. “I never expected you to visit, Lucy. Why would you? But Owen.”
“When did he get back into contact?”
“Have you two talked? He said you’ve only just got reacquainted; I’m not sure how much he’s told you. It’s not my place—”
“I’ve not told her everything,” Owen answers from the doorway, and Maria looks up. “Yet.”
“Do you not think this is something we should talk through together? Or do you want to tell her things first?” Maria asks.
“What things?” I ask as Owen comes and sits next to me on the sofa.
“I think I should probably tell you something first.”
“I saw the file, Owen. I saw themurder charge.”
“So, he did find that out then,” he says, rubbing at his chin. “I gave him stuff that I thought would help Andrews. I was expecting him to find some things, but not that. Apex is really good. But so were the people who buried my past.”
I shake my head, frowning as I put the last of the biscuit in my mouth and look to Maria, who is watching us both through tear-filled eyes.
I try to remain calm, show that I’m unaffected, put my mask in place, but my senses are buzzing. I’m on alert. I’m prepping to fight or flight, because whatever is about to come out of their mouths will change everything.
And it’s terrifying me.
“I reached out to Maria when I got out of jail the first time.”
I frown, shaking my head. “The first time?”
“He never left us, Lucy,” Maria says, clearing her throat.
“What?” I ask, my eyes boring into his. My heart thunders behind my ribs. Saliva fills my mouth, which I swallow down, forcing it past the growing ball in my throat.
“The night after the party. The police showed up and James said that if I didn’t leave, he’d report me for sex with a minor—”
“I was sixteen.” I interrupt.
“— on top of me having beat the shit out of Harry and his friends.”
“He hadn’t told me he was arrested. James hadn’t,” Maria adds as I glance between them. “He took all his stuff and told me he ran away, too. It wasn’t until Owen was released, since he wasn’t given the option of bail, that I found out. And by then—”
“I’d already run.”
I stand, the walls of the living room closing in on me as everything they have just told me sinks in.
He hadn’t run.
He hadn’t left.
He had been arrested.
He hadn’t been given bail.
I want to be sick.
I swallow back the lump in my throat.
