“Women, whatever. Alex and Hazel,” I snapped.
“But Rose,” Tommy said. “I didn’t kill Hazel.”
37
There was a hideous noise as the door shattered against the frame, splintering onto Suzannah and Tommy’s floor.
“Put the gun down, Ms. Dearling,” the officers shouted. I lowered it slowly onto the coffee table and raised my hands. There was a ringing in my ears.
They moved fast, wrangling my brother face-first onto the carpet and cuffing him. He was apologizing as they yanked him up to his knees.
Pullman came toward me, helping me up from the floor. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. It’s all over.” His hands were gentle.
Newbury was beside him. The older man’s bulletproof vest strained across his stomach.
“It’s all right,” he echoed. “You did good. We know that was hard.”
They forced Tommy out of the house. His shouts of apology continued down the front drive. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”Suzannah’s screams came next, louder than the rest.
We moved slowly into the yard. I didn’t feel like I could walk on my own. My legs were weak. It was dark outside, but the street was illuminated by the moonlight and the flashing lights from the cop cars. I blinked as everything slowly came into focus. Reporters were at the fence and property line. The same carnivorous news vans that had been at our house just a few days ago. Half of them were screaming in Tommy’s direction, where he headed toward a deputy’s car. The other half were yelling at me.
But as I listened to them, I realized it wasn’t just my name that they were screaming.“Hazel! Rose! Hazel! Rose!”
I stopped listening to them. My gaze moved to the far side of the yard, where some blue and red flashing lights belonged not to a police car but to an ambulance.
My parents were kneeling in the dirt, their arms wrapped around each other and someone else. I stopped in the middle of the lawn.
I didn’t kill Hazel. Tommy’s words echoed through my ears.
Standing between my parents, her dark hair mussed and matted, her shirt and leggings covered in stains, and with dark bruises around her throat, was my sister. Crying.Alive.
I felt like I was going to pass out. The world was pressing down around me. Hazel was alive. She looked up, her tear-stained face finding mine.
“She was in the neighbors’ shed,” Pullman said behind me. “One of the officers was walking the perimeter and heard her screaming.”
I blinked. Tommy and Suzannah’s neighbors were snowbirds and had a large shed for all of their outdoor activities right behind Tommy and Suzannah’s yard. Their properties were big. How could anyone have heard Hazel’s screaming if they weren’t already patrolling the property?
“They’re taking her to the hospital next,” Pullman said beside me. “I have to go to the station. We’re going to book Tommy. And, Rose, we’re sending a couple of officers to Miami. To talk to Will.”
Will. I watched as Hazel was loaded onto a gurney and into the ambulance. Tommy hadn’t killed her. He had kept her captive. But that didn’t change that he had killed Alexandria.
“I can have them bring you along. If you want to be the one to tell him.”
Will knew none of it. He had no idea of what had happened eleven years ago, or even this past week.
“Rose,” Pullman pressed. “Where do you want to go?”
To the hospital to see Hazel, or to the prison to see Will? It was the same choice I had faced a hundred times over the years. Hazel or Will? Who was more important? Who needed me more? I had chosen Will every time. He had always been my first priority.
“Hospital,” I whispered.
This time I had to choose Hazel.
38
I rode to the hospital in the back seat of a cop car with my mother, my head resting on her shoulder like I was a small child again. It was more affectionate than either of us had been with each other in years. It was unspoken, just natural. Her hand clasped mine. Dad had gone with Hazel and Detective Newbury in the ambulance. My mother and I sat in stunned silence. What could we say? There weren’t any words. I wondered where Suzannah was now. Poor Suzannah. How would she ever survive this? And the kids …
I wanted to ask my mother if this made any sense to her. If she hated Tommy the way I did right now. If she was sorry for condemning Will all this time. If she had ever suspected that Tommy was capable of something like this. But I didn’t. It felt like too much right now. I wasn’t sure either of us could take it.
