Brodie drags a hand through his hair. “He was leaving town,” he explains. “He didn’t know what Laurel and Chase did. I wanted it to stay that way.”
Of course he wanted it to stay that way.
He was only thinking of himself.
“He found my cap at the hotel,” Brodie continues. “The one I have for Roman’s Little League team. He recognized it. Put together I’d been in his room. We hadn’t met or talked. Laurel was the only other person I could have been there to see. He asked me to meet him.”
The piece of the puzzle we’ve been searching for finally surfaces.
Elliot was at the stadium because of Brodie.
“He confronted me. I told him I met Laurel at the club, that we partied and slept together, and I had no idea he was her boyfriend. Not until she begged me not to tell him.”
“You lied to him,” I whisper.
“He didn’t buy it,” Brodie says. “Said Laurel was clean. That she’d never cheat. So, I pushed. Told him if he wanted proof, I could describe the sounds she made when?—”
“Stop.” My voice shudders with repulsion.
“He snapped,” Brodie continues quietly. “Attacked me. I got one hit in. It’s how I ended up with the necklace. Then Jack showed up. He arrived early to help with props and lighting for a figure skating recital.”
He was only there to help with a show?
“Jack tried to pull him off,” Brodie says. “Elliot didn’t see him. Didn’t hear him. He just…saw red. Rage took over. Jack ended up under him.”
Pain tears through me, splintering everything in its path.
“And you ran.”
“I couldn’t have stopped him. He was feral.”
I shake my head at his words as if he believes it excuses everything.
“When Chase called, Elliot was gone,” he explains. “I thought someone at the stadium would stop Elliot or call the cops, butthe rage must have subdued enough for him to recognize what he’d done. He panicked and fled. Relapsed to numb it.”
My vision blurs before I can stop it.
“You let your friend…” I can’t finish my sentence. I shake my head, disgusted that he held a brush and painted Jack’s memory onto the ice.
“None of this would have happened if Elliot had just left town. If Chase had…”
“NO!” I scream. “You did this.”
Whatever was holding me together gives way.
My mind spirals and works in overdrive as I take in every painful part of the truth. Every thread leads back to him, and somehow, I ended up on his radar, too.
“How did you find out who I was?”
“It started with my grandfather,” he says quietly.
“Sebastian said he died in the fire he set.”
“He did,” Brodie says. “Last New Year, I found a photo album, one I’d never seen before. I found this,” Brodie says and hands me a worn photo.
I stare at the faces in front of me. Carlos. Clarissa Rose. Me.
Lucia Alvarez - age threeis written on the back.
