“What are you talking about?” Pullman asked. He furrowed his brow. “If you know something, you should tell me.”
This was the same person who had laughed at me when I’d dared to share what had happened that summer. Any idea or suspect I had suggested had been met with incredulity and judgment. Pullman wasn’t here to help me at all. He thought I was demented.
Well, fuck him. Fuck Isaac. Fuck Sam and Victoria. Fuck everyone who had made it so that the name Dearling was synonymous withliar. And fuck whoever had taken my little sister from us.
“Hazel was looking into Alex’s murder before she died,” I seethed, the sound of rain nearly drowning me out. “She spoke to Victoria and Sam Hopely and was tracking down leads all on her own. She even figured out that Alex was sleeping with Sam’s boyfriend at the time, Isaac Kelly, and ruled him out as a suspect. Which was more than your incompetent police force ever did. So maybe whoever killed her did it because she was asking the wrong fucking questions.”
My voice was loud now. Pullman took a step back from me, like I was going to jump forward and shove him into the bushes. “You’re serious?” he asked.
“As a heart attack,” I snapped. “Maybe instead of interrogating my father, you should go figure out who the fuck really killed Alexandria Hopely, and now my sister too.”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I pushed past him, nearly ripping the front door off its hinges as I pulled it open. It slammed behind me, and I left puddles all over the entryway floor.
Only Tommy stood in the kitchen, staring at a plate of more cold sympathy casserole. He looked like hell.
“Oh, hey.” He sounded resigned. “Where have you been?”
“I was visiting Will.”
I had never made it inside, but it wasn’t as if I could tell him I had been at Sam’s. He wouldn’t understand. And it didn’t matter anymore. Nothing mattered.
Tommy looked suspicious. “The whole day?”
I didn’t answer him. Telling Pullman what I knew was bad enough. I didn’t need to involve Tommy.
I stared at my older brother, feeling an inexplicable amount of grief. It was just him and me now. Will was in prison. Hazel was dead. Yet I’d never felt less close to Tommy in my life.
It felt like whatever remained of our family unit had shattered. Hazel had been the glue holding us together and without her, we had no more hope.
“Do you think it’s really her?” I asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. I tried to hold back my tears as I uttered the words. Tommy was always the most rational one. I needed his reassurances. I needed a reason to believe none of this was real.
“I don’t know!” he replied. Tommy sounded irritated. Irritated withme.
“Why are you mad at me?” I asked, crossing my arms.
Tommy rolled his eyes. “How could I not be, Rose? Everyone has been through the ringer today, and you were nowhere to be found—”
“I was visiting, Will!” It wasn’t a total lie, but it felt like one now that I was using it in defense of my own actions.
“Exactly!” Tommy spat. “You’ve been wasting your time helping the sibling that doesn’t need you,” he continued, his eyebrows pulled tight in frustration.“Hazel was missing,presumed dead now, and you weren’t here! You were running off to hold Will’s hand, trying to solve a crime that’s already been solved!”
I gritted my teeth. I had found out more in the past day about what happened to Alex than anyone, besides Hazel maybe, had in the last eleven years.
I opened my mouth to speak and then closed it. I had been ready to argue, to list off all of the reasons that Will being innocent and Hazel being missing because of this made so much sense. But that wasn’t going to land with Tommy. Not today, not now. It would fall on deaf ears. And I didn’t even know whatIthought right now. If what Sam said was true, what did that mean for Hazel?
But Tommy didn’t know what Sam had said to me. So where was his resentment coming from? I had always assumed Tommy’s constant contact with me had meant he and I were on the same page about Will.
I’d never considered that he also thought Will was guilty.
“You think Will killed Alex, don’t you?” My voice was tiny.
Tommy’s shoulders dropped. He lowered his head into his hands. He took a full minute of calming himself this way before he looked back up at me. His eyes were wet with tears.
“I love Will, I do,” he choked out. It sounded like an admission rather than a declaration. “But I have to be reasonable, Rose. Alex died in our backyard just hours after Will found out she had cheated on him. Who else would have been angry enough to kill her? Who else would have that kind of access to our homes? Will had motiveandopportunity.” He stopped, seeing the look on my face. “He was so mad at her. So hurt. Then she turns up dead, raped, and he’s saying she’s an angel stolen from us too soon? Why would he do that? Why has he not screamed his innocence from the rooftops at every chance he got? He feels guilty, Rose. He loved Alex, and he killed her. Will has to live with that, and so do we.”
The floor gave out beneath me and I felt my knees go weak. “I need to shower.”
“Rose.”
