Bertram doesn’t bat an eye. He listens to everything with the quiet patience of a man who has learned not to react emotionally.
When I’m done speaking, he weighs everything I’ve said carefully. “So, you’re not a writer.”
“No.” I’m breathless, as though I’ve just run a marathon. It occurs to me that I’ve never told anyone what I do. “Technically, I’m an interior decorator.”
“And you don’t take any money for this?” he asks, an eyebrow raised.
“Not one thin dime.”
“Then why do you do it? You and this—Mr. X, was it?”
I didn’t tell him that Mr. X is my brother, or that he’s dying, although both of these things play a huge role in why I’ve just confessed so much to him. I think back on what Mr. X told me, about this mission being his gift to me, a way for me to be redeemed and then retire quietly.
This is the part I hang on to. I’ve never admitted why I do this, not even to myself.
I avert my eyes. Only for a second, but it’s long enough for Bertram to see that he’s hit a nerve.
He reaches out and takes my hands, somehow pulling my gaze back to his. “We’re trying to trust each other, remember?” he says.
“I—I’ve never told anyone what happened. I don’t think I can say the words, but I can show you.”
I lead him upstairs, and he follows without complaining about the darkness, or commenting on how, despite the boxes and old monitors and wires everywhere, there isn’t a speck of dust to be found. My brother is a fastidious housekeeper, even if his methods wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.
There’s a closet just at the top of the stairs. I turn the combination of the fireproof safe on the bottom shelf, sitting on the ground as I tug it open. Bertram sits beside me, crossing his long legs elegantly, like an exotic, deadly cat that would only be found in some untapped jungle.
My brother never told me what he kept in this safe, but I’ve always known. It is the tangible beating heart of this house, the reason he lives in shadows as he does.
I extract a stack of newspaper articles bound together by a single elastic band.
They’re in chronological order—of course they are. Yellowing and tearing at the edges. More than twenty years old.
Silently, I hand them over to Bertram. I am giving him something that I’ve never shared with my own husband, or with my daughter. I realize that I’ve wanted to share itwith someone for years, but every time I came close, I ended up pushing it farther to the back of my mind.
“I’ve been trying to convince myself that this doesn’t define me,” I say. “But the more I insist that it doesn’t, the more it does.”
The headline of the top article reads:wallowa mother and father killed in fire.
I don’t read over his shoulder. Why should I, when I already know the story? The investigation turns to suspected arson. The couple’s two children—a boy, fourteen, and a girl, twelve—are being looked after by relatives. Rumors abound as people speculate that the children conspired to collect their inheritance. Turns out, the parents had a sizable fortune in the bank from a string of wise investments in a little company called Apple. They chose to live simply, to secure the money for their kids’ future. How could the kids do it? Did greed mean more than the lives of their parents? Something was always off about them, the neighbors say when interviewed.
Neighbors who once waved at us, sent their kids to play in our yard, and talked to my dad about lawn care. We went from victims to monsters in a blink. Soon enough, it was like we had never been human.
Then the trials began.
Bertram stares at the headline and then at me. “Is it true?” he asks. “Did you kill your parents for the inheritance?”
It’s an accusation that has haunted me for most of my life. But the way Bertram asks it, as though he’ll accept whatever answer I give him, offers me a chance to explain that hasn’t been given to me before.
You killed them. You’re both monsters. You should be in jail. You should be in hell.The voices all meld into one, until I can’t remember whose words belonged to whom, not that it matters. And then my brother, taller than me, crouching down before me with his reassuring, gentle eyes.“Don’t say anything,”he told me.“Not to anyone.”
So, I didn’t. Neither of us did. And with nowhere to go, the words have been trapped inside me.
“No,” I say, my voice hoarse. It’s as though I’m breathing in the smoke again. “Not exactly.”
Bertram sets the articles down, neatly returning them to their original pile and wrapping the elastic around them. He doesn’t read the remaining headlines. He’s telling me that he’d rather hear it from me.
“We’re trusting each other, remember?”
I nod, trying to work out how I got into this situation. My instincts have never steered me wrong, but now I don’t know whom I can trust. All evidence leads to Waylen killing Erin Casimir. I can’t account for his whereabouts. He’s been acting out of character lately, tracking my location and trying to scare me out of my spy work. He’s told me that he’ll do anything for our family. Would he kill for us?
