I work through what I know as I go. Reilan couldn't say it wasn't him — that's the center of it. But not saying it isn't a confession. People go mute for reasons other than guilt. Shock can do it. Fear can do it. The weight of a room where a man was just shot, and everyone is looking at you, can do it.
I've been watching Reilan tell lies and tell the truth my entire life, and I know which one his face was doing tonight. I'm not going to pretend otherwise just because I love him.
I know what William is doing, too. He built the trap for Frank — the fake paperwork, the phone calls, the promise of shares— and waited until Frank was comfortable, until Frank believed he had won, and then he pulled the trigger. He doesn't need certainty. He needs enough.
I stop at the kitchen door. The voices cut off when they hear me. I push through.
Aidan is leaning against the far counter with his arms folded. William is by the range. They both look at me, and nobody speaks.
"Tell me what you saw," I say to William.
Aidan's arms drop slightly.
"When you made the announcement," I say. "You watched the room. Tell me what you saw from him."
William is quiet for a moment. Working through something. Then: "His hands."
I wait.
"Flat on his knees. Fingers spread. He does it when he's trying to stay still, and his body is working against him. I've seen it before. Twice."
"That's what you have." I keep my voice level. "A gesture."
"It means something."
"Or he was frightened." I step further into the kitchen. "His sister just watched her fiancé shoot a man across the table. He didn't know what was coming any more than the rest of us did. That kind of shock moves through people in different ways."
Aidan makes a small sound.
William doesn't look away from me.
"He couldn't say it wasn't him," I say it before he can find another way to learn it. I need him to hear it from me first, with my framing on it, not someone else's. "I asked him directly. He didn't answer."
Something shifts in William's expression.
"I know what that looks like," I say. "I'm not asking you to ignore it. I'm asking you to wait."
"How long?"
"A few days. Give me a few days and let me talk to him properly. Somewhere that isn't here, with you in the next room and a body in the dining room." I hold his gaze. "If you're right about him, I'll tell you. All of it. Nothing left out."
The kitchen is quiet. The clock above the range is silent. A radiator ticking somewhere down the hall. Aidan is looking at William and not at me, giving him the room to make the call.
William looks at me for a long time with that attention that I still haven't gotten used to, that complete, unfiltered focus. There's nothing blurred about him anymore. Everything lands.
I don't look away, and I don't soften anything because he'll see through both.
"A few days," he says.
"A few days," I agree.
He turns back to the range. I stand there for a moment longer, and then I walk back out.
The stairs are at the end of the hall. I find them, and I go up, and I stop at the top landing and press my back to the wall in the dark.
I need to find my brother.
I need to find him, and I need to put him in a room with no exits, and I need him to tell me the truth, all of it, the beginning and the reason and the shape of what he's done. Because right now I have a gap between what I know and what I can prove and what William has, and the only person who can close that gap is Reilan. And when it's closed, I have to decide what to do with what's inside it.
