Page 71 of Guilty as Sin

“Oh yeah? You planning to break all his shit or something?”

“Better. I’m going snooping.”

Connor laughs. It’s his hearty, unaffected laugh with the goofy squeak at the end. The sound makes me smile. I haven’t heard him laugh like that since he was a kid.

“Excellent,” he says. “Tell me what you find. I’ll tell you all the cool shit I find as I go snooping around here.”

“Hey!” He’s in my apartment.

“I’m joking.” He laughs again. “I have no interest in my sister’s dirty secrets. Yours or Charlotte’s,” he adds, and I grimace.

“Speaking of…” I prompt, allowing Connor to fill in the blank as I begin my search in Brady’s bathroom.

“She’s fine,” he says with a sigh. I stay quiet, because sometimes that’s the best way to get my brother to talk.

In Brady’s medicine cabinet, I find dozens of luxury skincare products, precisely lined up with their labels facing out. Most of them look like curated samples sent to a high-end hotel manager to court his brand partnership.

I help myself, rubbing sandalwood moisturizer into my cheeks as I wait for Connor.

“Charlotte’s fine and Mom’s fine and Dad’s fine,” he finally says.

“Wait.” I return the bottle to its shelf, label out. “You still talk with Aileen and Cormac?” I knew Connor still had some form of contact with them, though I’d assumed it was cursory. But it sounds like it’s more than that.

“I mean, yeah. They’re our parents, regardless of what you call them.”

“Aren’t you pissed at them for blaming everything on you? They shouldn’t have made you take the fall like that.” I’m pissed at them for it. Even if they hadn’t known about his plan like he claims, it’s still their duty to protect their son.

“You took the fall,” he says, morose. “And it was my fuckup.”

“You made a bad choice. People make bad choices sometimes.” I slide open the vanity drawers, each with its own wooden organizer.

“You sound like the frickin’ priest,” Connor grumbles. I freeze with my hand on the top drawer.

“You talked to a priest about this?”

“I mean, yeah. It’s called confession.”

“And you’ve been going to confession here? I thought you never left the apartment.”

“I keep my hat low to hide my face,” Connor says, as if that’s supposed to reassure me. “And it’s not like the priest can see me when I’m in the booth.”

“Yes, but he’s a stranger. You can’t trust him with secrets like that. You shouldn’t trust anyone, really,” I add, resuming my snooping.

From the final drawer, I pull out a low-dose inhaler, my first interesting discovery. Turns out physically fit Brady has an Achilles heel.

“I trust you,” my brother points out.

“I know. I trust you too.” I put Brady’s inhaler back in its compartment. “But I still don’t like the idea of you going to confession.”

“Of course you don’t like it. It was Dad’s idea, so you must hate it on principle.”

“Why the hell are you still doing whatever Cormac tells you?” I flick off the bathroom light and head into Brady’s enormous closet.

“Because I’m his heir,” Connor says.

We both pause. My brother was Cormac’s heir, but that’s been thrown into considerable doubt now.

“I still am,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. But he doesn’t sound confident about it.