Page 109 of Wicked Brutal

Arthur lifts a hand before this becomes something else. “Continue.” I scroll.

“The dinner conversation moved away from us eventually. Then Victor started talking about Ally.”

Dad’s expression darkens immediately. “What did he say?”

“He talked about her being his wife. About Roman doing a good job raising her. He touched her. Nothing anybody at that table could call assault. Hand at her neck. Waist. Shoulder. The kind of shit he can do while smiling because everybody else is supposed to think it’s affectionate.”

Callum looks disgusted. “Did Jane react?”

“After dinner Jane warned Ally not to be alone with him if she could avoid it.”

Arthur’s pen stops. “Those words?”

“Yup,then Tremblay changed his plans.” I look at the time on my phone. 6:19. “He was supposed to leave yesterday. Instead, during that dinner, he decided he wanted to take Ally to lunch today.”

“Why?” Theodore asks.

“Nobody fucking knows.”

Arthur watches me. “And Ally doesn’t know why Tremblay wants her alone.”

“No.”

Arthur gestures toward my phone. “Friday. That’s when Ally remembered Ashford?”

Theodore looks up. “Ashford wasn’t at the dinner?”

“No. That came afterward.” I scroll to the next section. “She was going back through the conversation, trying to remember anything else, and Ashford came up. London was around the same memory. Roman said something needed to stay separate.”

Arthur taps his pen. “Separate from what?”

“She doesn’t know.”

“And Ashford?”

“Connected somehow. The other part she remembered was Roman saying not to use the same account.”

Theodore’s attention sharpens. “Same account as what?”

“Again, she doesn’t know.”

Arthur nods. “This is where you started asking about older memories.”

“Yeah.” I lock my phone because I don’t need it anymore. “Because she kept apologizing.”

Dad frowns. “For what?”

“Not knowing enough. She thought because she couldn’t tell me what Hollis does or what account Roman meant, none of it was useful. So I asked whether she’d heard any of the names before.”

“And?”

“At first, nothing.” I lean forward, forearms on my knees. “Then I stopped asking about Thursday.” Arthur doesn’t interrupt. “I asked her about Roman. Victor. Growing up. Summers at the lake. Dinners. Trips. Phone calls. Things she’d heard when she was a kid.”

Danny looks at me. “And that’s when it started. What came first?”

“Vaughn.”

Arthur turns to a clean page. “Context.”