Lauren
I was slightly calmer when I opened the door to Tanner.
I’d cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.
I’d washed my face, taken many deep breaths, and gotten myself a glass of wine.
Rationally, I knew that all these things had happened years ago.
The murder.
My brother’s death.
The writing in the journal.
But it all felt like those events had just taken place for me right now.
I wanted to be mad at Tanner because he might have known about all of this, but the moment he closed the door and held out his arms, I rushed into them.
He hugged me tightly, and I clung to him like a lifeline.
This man had been there for me for so many years that my actions were as natural as breathing for me.
He’d always been the person I turned to when I needed someone to talk to or some kind of comfort.
I couldn’t just change those years of closeness in an instant, even if he had been keeping a huge secret from me.
“Tell me what happened,” he said huskily as he finally released me. “What’s all this craziness about Keith killing Cole’s father?”
“You didn’t know?” I asked carefully as I led Tanner into the living room, sat on the sofa, and picked up the very large glass of wine I’d poured earlier.
“It didn’t happen,” he said firmly as he dropped into the recliner. “Your brother was my best friend. We knew everything about each other.”
No, you didn’t.
Not everything.
It was clear to me that Tanner didn’t know that Keith had killed Cole’s father, so there were some things my brother definitely hadn’t told his best friend.
“There was one thing you didn’t know,” I said softly, hating the fact that the information I had was going to hurt Tanner, too. “Keith did kill Cole’s father. I started reading Keith’s old journals several weeks ago. I just got to the last one. One of the last entries was about the murder and how my brother killed your uncle.” I picked up the journal that I’d put on the coffee table. “I’ll let you read it if you want to, but I need to explain something else first.”
I was going to have to tell him abouteverythingfor Tanner to understand the entire situation.
Tanner shook his head in disbelief. “That makes no damn sense. Your brother didn’t have a bone to pick with my uncle. He had no reason to kill him.”
“Actually, he did,” I confessed.
I told Tanner everything about the attempted molestation and how Cole had saved me from a worse fate that day.
I explained that Keith and Cole had been the only ones who had known about that incident, and how my brother had kept it quiet to protect me.
“Fuck!” Tanner exclaimed in a highly frustrated tone as he rose from his seat. “I need a damn drink. Do you have anything stronger than wine?”
“Cole left some Scotch in the pantry,” I called out as he strode into the kitchen.
I heard some banging around before Tanner came back into the living room with a healthy glass of the whiskey.
He tossed back a mouthful before he sat back down in the recliner.
