Christian’s eyes locate mine, and Colten stiffens beside me. “You must be Taryn,” he says. I shift uncomfortably, not particularly enjoying the way my pulse is battering in responseto him knowing who I am. “Tristan has talked about you in his letters.”
He has? Tristan never allowed me to read them, even though I helped Elena with hers. He needed help addressing the letters but would seal the envelope before giving them to me.
Christian’s gaze lands back on his son. “How are they?”
Colten exhales a breath. “Confused. Distraught. Missing a father who doesn’t deserve to be missed.”
I wince while his father’s weak frame tenses at his son’s unsympathetic words.
“I—” His father sighs, clutching the phone so hard his knuckles turn white.
“Hmm?Are you going to try to defend yourself? Because it’s too late for that. We found her, and there’s nothing you can—”
“You found her?” He chokes, his eyes glassing over with a look that completely flips my stomach.Why does he look like that?“Is—is she okay?”
Colten’s brow furrows irritably, and my heart lurches into my throat.
“What are you talking about?” Colten snips. “Of course she’s not fucking okay.” His voice rises, and I peer around at the guards staring at us apprehensively.
His eyes don’t stray from Colten’s. “Where is Jane?”
My head tilts at his question. Either he is insane and pulling up a mask to hide the truth, or he is genuinely as confused as I am.
Colten releases my hand, pointing an index finger up to the glass. “In a morgue! She’s in a damn morgue, Dad!”
“Colten,” I warn through gritted teeth, pulsing my fingers into his thigh gently.
His chest rises and falls, his cheeks flushing with fury. Compared to this cement box, it is a vibrant hue contrasting everything else around us. “No, Taryn! He needs to know that wefound her, despite his best efforts to make sure she would never be found!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” Christian whispers into the phone. It’s not the kind of hushed tone used to conceal truths, but one that genuinely shows me this man is perplexed.
“No?” Colten taunts. “You didn’t run her car off the cliffside into the Columbia when she was still inside? Because we have her body,” he points to his chest, “my mother’s body! Taryn’s truck went off the cliff, and she found her car…” The inhale Colten takes is loud and booming.
Christian closes his eyes, his face flushing as a tear falls onto his cheek. He scrunches his features as if he’s in pain. “I lost her,” he mumbles into the phone.
“We all lost her!” Colten clarifies. “Because of—”
“No,” Christian shakes his head, Colten’s movements freezing. “There’s so much you don’t know about what led to that night,” he murmurs. “After you came into our room and found us, and she drove off, I went after her.”
Colten peers at him disbelievingly. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” His dad exhales. His eyes flit to mine briefly before settling back on his son. “I looked for Jane all night, but I never found her.”
FORTY-SEVEN | COLTEN
Whatever oxygen is filling the rooms on both sides of the glass seems to be sucked out rapidly. Taryn stills beside me, her eyes wide. The air in my lungs dispels, my eyes shifting into slits to glare at my father, who doesn’t appear to be breathing.
“What do you mean you never found her?” I question the man who I look like in more ways than I care to admit.
My jawline and dark hair are identical to his. Before he was arrested, his muscular frame rivaled what mine is now. Working out was as effective as alcohol when it came to stress.
It’s the eyes, though. That’s the major transformation. They’re haunting. Buzzing with lies behind the layer of confusion, attempting to muddle my focus and distract me.
He’s playing me.
“Do you remember that morning? The morning I came back to the house. You never left the porch—”
“Yes, I remember it quite well.” The memory is branded into my brain permanently, seared into the bone of my skull, where even my corpse someday will never be rid of the horrific recollections.
