The Clarke Brothers (Complete Series)

by Lilian Monroe

  They preyed on three teenage boys. Dominic had power of attorney over Dad, but he wasn’t capable of making that kind of decision. There was no lawyer, no advice, just a hastily drawn-up contract by the McCoys.

  It’s not about the hotel. It was never about the hotel. I’m not mad about Maddy, or her involvement in the hotel construction. When I pack up my truck and head back to town, my heart feels light again. I drive for miles, humming to myself until I get radio signal, and then listening to the radio until I get phone signal. Once my phone gets back into range, it starts buzzing and buzzing and buzzing with missed calls and text messages. I frown, glancing over at it as I drive.

  I pick it up and scroll through the missed calls. Bill, my brothers, even Margaret McCoy. No call from Maddy, or anyone else from the company. My heart starts to beat a little bit harder as my phone starts to ring.

  “Bill,” I say, putting the phone to my ear as I drive down the deserted highway.

  “Aiden, where the fuck have you been?”

  “I’ve been up past Wolf Mountain for three days. I told Ethan I was leaving to clear my head. Why? What’s going on? I’ve got thousands of missed calls.”

  “The hotel,” Bills says. “Aiden, someone’s burned the hotel down.”

  I almost drop the phone in shock. My mouth hangs open and it takes all my concentration to keep my vehicle on the road.

  “Aiden? Aiden are you there?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” I answer. “What… What do you mean?”

  “I mean someone took a match and lit the fucking thing up like a Christmas tree. There’s nothing left.”

  I blow out the air from my lungs and shake my head. “I’ll be back in town in six hours, Bill, I’ll come straight in.”

  “Any idea who could have done it?” he asks.

  I think to the look in Ethan’s eye when I left, and all the talk between him and Dominic about burning the place down. They wouldn’t actually do it, would they? Ethan is a straight shooter. He wouldn’t commit a crime like that. Dominic, maybe…

  “No,” I lie. “No idea. I’ve been out here for days,” I say.

  “Alright. I’ll see you when you get in.”

  I hang up the phone and toss it into the cup holder beside me. I grip the steering wheel with both hands as my eyes get wider and I shake my head.

  “Ethan, Dominic, what have you done?” I breathe. “What the fuck have you done?”

  I keep repeating it to myself like a mantra. I flick the radio off and drive in silence until the road gets familiar and I finally pull into Lang Creek.

  When I get to the police station, Sheriff Whittaker comes out to greet me. He extends his hand and pumps my arm up and down.

  “Aiden, thanks for coming in.”

  “So it was arson?”

  “Forensics are still investigating, but we’ve pretty much narrowed down the point of ignition to two sources.” He looks around and lowers his voice. “If it’s not arson, then I’m a fucking lady in a tutu.”

  I blow the air out of my nose and shake my head.

  Bill chews his lip and wrings his hands together. “I hate to ask you this, Aiden, but I’m going to have to ask you to make a statement. We’re asking everyone in town to make one, just to get ahead of the investigation.”

  My eyes widen. “You don’t think that I…”

  “No!” he exclaims. “No, no I don’t think it was you. We just need to know your movements from Thursday morning to Friday evening.” He looks around again and grins at me. “If you ask me, whoever did it is a fucking national hero.”

  I nod, but my face stays steady. I think back to Thursday, from the morning when Maddy confronted me to going to Ethan’s house to taking off on my own. When the fire was started, I was on my own in the mountains. I don’t have an alibi, and even though Bill is saying he’s glad the place burned down, I know how these investigations go.

  It’ll be a witch hunt. Who better to blame than the poster boy who opposed the construction of the hotel? I also happen to be the guy who conveniently decided to go camping on his own when the whole thing happened? I nod to Bill and follow him into the police station. My heart sinks with every step, and I try not to think about the fact that out of all those missed calls on my phone – not a single one of them was from Maddy.

  37

  Madeline

  I’m finally alone. I kick off my heels and sit down on the couch in my living room. I’m in New York, and the sounds of traffic and honking and sirens are muffled from the street below.

  I close my eyes and lean back, resting my hands on my stomach. My black dress feels smooth under my fingers, and I lie back and let my body sink into the couch. I spent the whole day keeping myself together as people came to me one after another to offer their condolences. For the thousandth time today, I feel like I’m on the brink of falling apart. This time, I let it happen.

  My father’s funeral was torture. I had to be the dutiful daughter when all I wanted to do was scream. Now that I’m alone, I don’t know what to do with myself. I just sit on the couch with my head leaning against the back cushion. My eyes are closed and my whole body feels heavier than it’s ever felt before. The first of my tears squeezes out of the corner of my eye and rolls down the side of my face.

  I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to wallow and sit here alone and cry myself to sleep – only to wake up with a puffy, swollen face and a hollow chest. I don’t want to be here alone. I don’t want my father to be dead.

  I open my eyes and let the tears fall out one after another. I don’t sob. I don’t move. They just pour out of my eyes one after another. I stare at the ceiling for a while, and then I lift my head and look around the room. It’s exactly how I left it before I went to Lang Creek, but somehow it feels different. It feels like something has changed. Like I’ve changed.

  I look at the tasteful throws and complementary cushions on the high wingback chair. I look at the little mirrored boxes beside the orchid on my coffee table. I wiggle my toes in the plush rug under my feet and it just feels so fake. My apartment is gorgeous, and impeccably decorated, but once again I’m here alone.

  My father has died, work is a disaster, and the first man I’ve ever loved has turned out to be someone I thought he wasn’t.

  Why hasn’t he called me?

  It’s been almost a week since I left Lang Creek, and I haven’t heard a word from Aiden. Ever since that morning when I confronted him at his cabin, he’s been completely silent. His silence has spoken louder than anything he could have said, it’s just not what I want to hear.

  More tears fall out of my eyes and I take a deep breath. My chest feels heavy and I force myself to breathe in completely. What does Aiden matter? What does work matter or the fire or Barry or the petition when my father just died? The backbone of our family is gone. He’s the one person that I’ve been able to turn to, who believed in me completely even when I didn’t walk the path set out for me. And now he’s dead.

  Over the past few days, I’ve learned to hate the euphemisms people use for dying. ‘Leaving us’, or ‘passing on’, ‘passing away’ and ‘crossing over’. It’s all bullshit. He’s dead. He’s not coming back. I don’t want anyone to be gentle with me. I don’t want anyone to coddle me and make me feel better by trying to call it something different. He died, and he’s not coming back. It hurts more than anything. Calling it something other than death just feels like a slap in the face.

  I’ve seen the looks that people are giving me. I’m expected to step into his role – to stop my own career in environmental engineering and do what I was supposed to do from the start. The company is mine if I want it, and I don’t know what to do.

  I don’t want it. I don’t want to run the company. I don’t want to build a hotel in Lang Creek. All I want is my father. I want his shoulder to cry on and I want him to tell me he’s proud of me and that everything will be okay.

  I reach for my phone and hesitate before unlocking the screen. I take
a deep breath and find Aiden’s number. It takes me a long time to type out a message, and even when it’s typed out, I don’t hit ‘send’. I throw my phone aside and finally get up off the couch.

  I take a long, hot shower, and I warm up some leftovers in my fridge. I pour myself a tall glass of wine and take a sip, staring at my phone from across the room. It’s right where I left it on the sofa.

  I know I shouldn’t send it to him. I know it’ll only open up the wounds and make me feel worse. What I should do – what everyone wants me to do – is to forget about Lang Creek and take care of my father’s company. I should put Aiden Clarke and the McCoys behind me and move on with my life.

  But as I stand here, sipping dry red wine as I lean against the counter in my fancy kitchen, all I can see is my phone. Its blank screen is taunting me, calling out to me from across the room.

  The microwave dings and I glance at it in disgust. Warming up those leftovers was ambitious of me. All I want to do is take them out and throw them directly into the trash. I glance from the microwave back to my phone and put my glass of wine down a bit too forcefully.

  I make a bee-line directly for my phone and grab it off the sofa where I left it. I unlock it with a swipe and find the draft of my message. My hands are trembling but I hit ‘send’ before I can talk myself out of it. It takes a second for the message to say ‘sent’ and then another second for the word ‘delivered’ to appear underneath it. I sigh and read the message over and over and over until it’s burned into my mind.

  My heart is thumping as I look at the text I just wrote. Part of me feels like I shouldn’t have said anything, but part of me feels completely satisfied with myself. I read my words one more time before dropping my phone down and heading back to my wine. They’re the exact words that I’ve wanted to ask him for almost a week, ever since the day I stood on the hill watching all my hard work burn to ash. They’re the words that I haven’t had the guts to say until now, until everything in my life has burned up with that hotel.

  Did you do it?

  38

  Aiden

  Bill says things like ‘eliminate me from the investigation’, but all I hear is ‘suspect number one’. The paranoia is well and truly setting in when he leads me to a small room and asks me if I want anything to drink.

  I’ve seen the movies. I know what happens in rooms like this. I get left here to stew for hours as they try to extract a confession from me. Even though I know that I’ve been camping for three days, even though I know I’ve had nothing to do with this fire, I still feel partially responsible.

  I shouldn’t have said those things to my brothers. I shouldn’t have said it to Maddy! What if she told Bill that I’d threatened to burn the place down the morning of the fire? That’s how people get convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.

  I jump as the door opens and Bill drops a steaming cup of coffee in front of me. He gives me a wink and sits down.

  “This shouldn’t take too long, Aiden. You’ll be out of here in no time.” He flicks a switch on the recording equipment. “Right, so can you state your name for the record?”

  “Aiden Clarke.”

  Bill nods. “And where were you on Thursday night? That’s the night of May 24th.”

  “I was out on Wolf Mountain, camping up at a site over there. I stayed there until this morning. Uh... Sunday.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No.” My heart starts thumping as Bill nods, staring at the sheet in front of him.

  “And can anyone confirm your whereabouts?”

  “I told my brother Ethan I was going. I stopped for gas on the way there, about 1pm. I bought firewood at about 6pm from a shop at the base of the mountain.”

  “Up at Wolf Mountain?”

  I nod. Bill points to the recording equipment and I clear my throat. “Yes.”

  Bill nods and winks at me. He shuffles his papers and taps them on the table. “Well, those are all my questions. Thanks for your cooperation, Aiden.” He flicks the switch on the recording equipment and winks at me again. I frown, not knowing what all these winks are about. “Thanks, Aiden. All done! If you want to go see the site, I’m heading up there this afternoon.”

  “Sure, that sounds good,” I say. Bill extends his hand across the table toward me. I shake it, and he leads me out of the police station. When I get outside, the sun is shining on my face and I look around me in a daze. I was 100% sure that I’d be in jail right now. I thought Bill would be interrogating me for hours. He didn’t even look like he believed me when I told him I was camping six hours away.

  I shake my head and walk toward my truck. Old Man Wilson is passing on the street and he waves to me from the other side.

  “Morning,” I call out. He crosses the road toward me and reaches his hand out. I shake his hand. He pulls me close with a devilish grin on his face.

  “You’re your father’s son, you know that, Aiden? Everyone in town is talking about you.”

  I frown. “About me?”

  Old Man Wilson grins at me and rubs the side of his nose as he winks. “That’ll teach those corporate fuckers.”

  He shuffles off and I stare back at him, my mouth hanging open. I look around at the buildings around me and I shake my head. He thinks I did it! They all think I did it! Bill even thinks I did it! I spin around and stare at the police station. An officer walks out and looks over toward me. He gives me a meaningful nod before heading toward his cruiser.

  My jaw is still hanging open. They all think I did it, and they’re happy about it? No one seems upset at all. I climb into my truck and start driving down Main Street. Before I get to the end of town, I make a hard-right turn and head toward Dominic’s house – a small shack right at the edge of town. I jump out of the truck and stomp toward the door.

  “Dominic!” I yell as I bang on the old wooden door. “Dominic! I know you’re in there!”

  The door swings open and my brother’s huge body appears in the opening. He looks me up and down and then nods me inside, stepping aside for me to pass. As soon as he closes the door, I spin around toward him.

  “Dominic, what the fuck is going on? Did you do this?”

  “Do what?” he asks innocently, walking past me to sit down on his couch. He glances at the TV before turning the volume down and looking back at me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I snip. “Was I interrupting something?” I say, looking at the TV.

  “Kind of, yeah,” Dominic says with a grin. He pauses and then chuckles, waving to his sofa. “Come on, Aiden. Sit down.”

  “Tell me you didn’t do this! Did you burn down that hotel?”

  He looks at me and grins before shaking his head. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”

  My heart is thumping and I look at my brother for a moment before swinging my eyes around the room. He lives just like I do – it’s simple and minimalist, but it’s always clean. I sink onto his sofa and put my head in my hands.

  “Everyone thinks I burned it down, Dominic. Old Man Wilson just shook my hand over it! Bill even thinks I did it!”

  Dominic chuckles. “Typical. We do all the work and you get all the credit.”

  “Credit! It’s a crime! We could go to jail! I didn’t even do it and I’m afraid of going to jail!”

  “Police don’t seem to be in a hurry to catch anyone.”

  “What about when the McCoys start putting pressure on them? When the company puts pressure on them? They’re going to want answers!”

  “They’ll pick up their insurance checks and run,” he says with a snort. “The site will be left like that until the forest reclaims it, and no one will ever be charged.”

  “How can you be sure, Dominic! How do you know?”

  Dominic grins and turns the volume back up on the TV. “Bill Whittaker said so himself, right before he torched the fucking thing.”

  “What!”

  Dominic just laughs and I watch him, my heart thumping and my jaw hanging open. It
feels like I haven’t closed my mouth in hours, ever since I started driving back. Dominic shakes his head and laughs.

  “You were always way too afraid of getting in trouble. Even as a kid. Do you remember the time you told Mrs. Wheeler that you thought about not doing your homework? You handed it in on time, but you still apologized for thinking about not doing it.”

  Dominic swings his gaze toward me and smiles as he shakes his head. “That’s why we didn’t ask you to help, Aiden. We had to show you the site before we did it to make you understand. I know that girl has you all twisted up inside, but that hotel would only have brought trouble.”

  “You guys were planning this all along? So your comments about burning it down… You were being serious? Bill was in on it?” My head is spinning. What town is this! It’s like I live in the Wild West. “And wait, twisted up inside?”

  Dominic just settles back into his chair. “It’s for the best.”

  I nod and take a few moments to compose myself before standing up to leave. I run my hands through my hair and let all the air out of my lungs. I don’t know what to think. If everything works out the way he says, then could they be right to have burned it down? It’s such huge destruction, it can’t possibly be okay…

  But they did save the area from the decades of overuse and destruction that would have come had the hotel been built. They stopped the McCoys from gaining more ground in town.

  The townspeople seem happy about it, at least. I mumble a goodbye to Dominic and walk out in a daze. My head is spinning. When I get to my truck, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and look at Maddy’s name. My heart starts beating faster as I read the message.