Remington's Tower

by Katharine Sadler

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He smiled at the sound of my voice, but when he looked up and saw my expression, his smile faltered. “I’m not sure,” he said. “I just wanted to see you. I had a shitty Thanksgiving and I thought…I thought seeing you would make it better somehow.”

  I wanted to sit next to him and hug him and hear all about his terrible holiday, but I couldn’t do it. “Did you have a bad holiday, Lawrence Stanley Hayworth? Mine was quite enlightening.” And there it was, all of my thoughtful planning about how I was going to tell him was gone. I’d just punched him right in the face with my words and I felt no remorse. I felt only anger and hurt.

  And he looked like he had been punched in the face. His head swung back, his face paled, and his eyes widened. He stood and grabbed my hand. He tried to pull me to sit on the couch, but I pulled my hand free. “What the hell are you doing?”

  He stopped and faced me, his eyes searching my face. “Don’t run from me, Remy. Just hear me out before you jump to any conclusions.”

  “Conclusions?” I said. “Conclusions? How long have you known, Worthy? How long have you known that my uncle killed your father?”

  “I’ve known as long as you have,” he said. “I found out when you did.” He tilted his head back and pushed his fingers through those curls I knew were so soft to the touch. “I should have—”

  “How long have you known that my father and your father were connected?”

  “Remy, please,” he said. “If you calm down, I’ll tell you everything. You have to listen—”

  I clenched my hands and ignored Bell and Frankie who’d come out of their rooms and were watching us. “Answer the fucking question,” I said in a voice just above a whisper. I didn’t want a scene any more than he did, if only because I didn’t want to be interrupted before I got the answers I needed. Going somewhere I could be alone with him was not an option.

  He sat and gestured for me to do the same. I smiled at Bell and Frankie and waved them away. Bell left her room and went to the one I shared with Frankie. They left the door open a crack and I knew, if I needed them, they’d be there in an instant. I stalked over and sat on the other end of the couch. “How long, Worthy?”

  “My mom never talked about my father or his death,” he said, staring straight ahead, not looking at me. “When I was fifteen, my aunt told me my father had been murdered because he was friends with the wrong people. She wouldn’t give me any names, but she did tell me about my father’s best friend, Leon McKinney.”

  I clasped a hand to my mouth to keep the barrage of emotions and disgust from over-flowing. This was so much worse than I’d suspected.

  He looked at me and his expression went from stoic to lost in an instant. His shoulders drooped and his eyes darkened and hardened, hard chocolate instead of melty amber. “I hate the way you’re looking at me right now,” he said. “But I deserve it. Everything you’re thinking is probably true. I figured Leon would know what happened to my dad or at least give me more names. I followed Byron here and I joined the same frat he did, I became friends with him, because I wanted answers. I needed to find out what really happened to my father.”

  I wanted to run from his words, because they hurt too much, but I needed to know the truth. “It was all a lie.” I hated the way my voice broke, but I couldn’t help it.

  Pure anguish raked across his features. “No,” he said. “I mean, yes, it started out that way, but I honestly like Byron. He’s one of my best friends. That’s real. He didn’t know anything about my dad and neither did his brothers. I had to be careful about how I asked, but I believed they didn’t know anything. I’d accepted I might never know the answer—”

  “Why not just go to my uncle and ask him? Why all the subterfuge?”

  “I didn’t think he’d be willing to give answers to some strange kid who showed up on his doorstep. Leon disappeared the night my father was killed for a reason.”

  “You thought if you became friends with Byron, he could introduce you, make the whole thing seem more natural?”

  He winced. “Yes, but Byron never invited me home with him, and I couldn’t exactly force the issue without making him suspicious.”

  “And then you met me, and you found the perfect way in.”

  He growled and ran a hand over his face. “No, Remy, that’s not how it happened. I know you don’t have a good reason to believe anything I say, but if you’d just listen—”

  “Why bother?” I asked. “You’ve already gotten your answers. You’ve gotten…” A cold finger dug into my chest and froze my next breath. “Unless you want more. Unless you want to make Uncle Leon pay. Want to make me pay.” I looked at him. “Is that why you didn’t leave me as soon as you got your answers? You wanted revenge? You wanted to break my heart? To hurt me?”

  He sank like I’d placed a heavy weight on him and, if I thought I’d seen despair on his face before, I’d been wrong. This was true despair. “How could you think…” He shook his head. “I don’t want to hurt you or make anyone pay, Remy. When I met you, I thought you were really Byron’s cousin. I thought you were too young to have any connection to my father, but—”

  And it all clicked into place. “But then you realized how old I really was. You realized I was the little girl who’d gone missing the night your father was killed. That’s why you disappeared for eight days.”

  “I didn’t know who you were,” he said. “I’d never suspected that Rachel might still be alive. We played together, do you remember?” I nodded, my throat tight. “I was so sad when they told me you’d died. I was already grieving my dad and it just felt like…the world seemed dark and sad and lonely.”

  The backs of my eyes burned, sadness for that lost, sad boy making my chest hurt. I pushed that emotion away and focused on what he was telling me. “I don’t get it. If you knew Leon left the night your dad was killed, why wasn’t he your number one suspect?”

  He shrugged. “In retrospect, it seems ridiculously obvious, but my aunt and my mother only had the best things to say about Leon. They told me he was a good man, that he and my dad had been best friends since they were kids. I figured he was running from whoever had killed his best friend and his girlfriend’s niece.”

  “And in all of your research, you never questioned who Byron’s little sister might be?”

  “Byron never mentioned you, Remy, until you showed up here on campus. After the way we met, I couldn’t question him about you without seeming really suspicious.”

  “So you became friends with me to find out who I was.”

  He slammed a fist on his thigh in frustration or anger, I couldn’t tell which. “No. I was attracted to you, drawn to you, from the first moment I saw you and I knew that could be trouble. The only way you might get me closer to your uncle was if I dated you, and I wasn’t going to use you like that. I tried to stay away, but I got to know you without even meaning to and I started to care for you. I told myself you were too young to have any connection to my dad, and I promised myself I’d give up on getting answers from your uncle. I was willing to give up on that for you, Remy. I chose you over solving my dad’s murder.”

  “Until I told you how old I am.” I was getting drawn into his story, believing his rationalizations without meaning to. I reminded myself he’d used me and couldn’t be trusted.

  “I knew you’d gone to live with the McKinneys when you were eight, the same year I was eight, the same year my father was killed. It was too much of a coincidence and…I needed some space to figure things out.”

  “I thought you’d chosen me over your quest for answers,” I said, my tone so nasty I surprised myself.

  “I had. Shit. You don’t believe anything I’m saying, do you?” He stood and paced the common room a few times before he spoke again. “I stayed away because I wanted to do right by you. When I realized there was a good chance you might be Rachel, our relationship became a hundred times more complicated.” He knelt in front of me and tri
ed to take my hands, but I shook him off. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “No, you just left without a word of explanation and then broke up with me for no good reason.”

  He grimaced. “I went home because my brother had gotten into some trouble, I didn’t lie about that. I talked to my aunt while I was there and she admitted she’d always wondered if Rachel was really dead, because the police had never found her body. I didn’t want to break up with you, it killed me to hurt you like that, but I told myself it was the best thing I could do for you. Then you asked for my help, and I--”

  My heart was pounding so fast it hurt and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to scream or cry or beat the shit out of him. Probably all three. “Saw the perfect opportunity to get more answers from me. That’s why you took me to Herc’s. Not to help me, but to help yourself. You used me to get more information for yourself.”

  “No, Remy, I—”

  “And then you drew me in, made me care about you, made me…So you could hurt me and my uncle. So you could get revenge.” I couldn’t really blame Worthy, if someone murdered my uncle Leon or one of my cousins, I’d hunt them down like the dogs they were and make sure they paid.

  “No,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you or your uncle. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone. Remy, I—”

  “Don’t say it.” My heart cracked, but I straightened my shoulders and lifted my chin. I wouldn’t let him see how he’d hurt me. “Don’t tell me you love me. If you loved me, you wouldn’t have lied to me.” I stood and locked my hands behind my back so I wouldn’t hit him. “I trusted you, Worthy. I took you to my home. I introduced you to my uncle, and you were lying to us the whole time.”

  “I’ve never lied to you,” he said. “I kept things from you, but I’ve never told you an outright lie. And I don’t blame you for what happened to my dad. You were a little girl, Remy, and you didn’t do anything wrong. My father was angry and he scared you, he was too rough and–”

  “He scared me? He tried to kill me, Worthy. He would have killed me if Uncle Leon hadn’t killed him.”

  “I know that’s how it felt to you, Remy, but I remember my father. He was a good man. He wouldn’t hurt a child. He wouldn’t kill a little girl.”

  “So you think I made the whole thing up? You think my uncle lied?”

  “No,” he said. “I just think you both might have misinterpreted the situation.”

  I couldn’t prove to Worthy that he was wrong. For all I knew, he was right. Maybe I’d fallen and Arle was bent over me, with a gun in his hand, to bandage a scrape on my knee? Nope I just couldn’t imagine a scenario which could have put us in that position. “You think my uncle would kill his best friend without being absolutely certain he knew what was going on?”

  “He saw a man with a gun and you in shooting range. He overreacted and shot before he thought it through.”

  “Do you hear yourself right now?”

  “I’ve read my father’s autopsy report,” he said. “There were no drugs or alcohol in his system when he was killed. He wouldn’t have tried to kill a little girl if he was in his right mind. He was a good man, Remy.”

  And I got it. Worthy didn’t want to believe his father could have tried to murder a child, so he was rewriting the story, twisting the facts to suit his worldview. I could understand the urge, but I couldn’t condone it. No one ever benefitted from closing their eyes to the truth. “Worthy, your father could be a good man and still have made a terrible mistake in a moment of despair and desperation.”

  “No. I talked to my mom over break.” He didn’t look at me, but kept his eyes firmly on the ground. “I finally got her to open up about my father. She said he wasn’t addicted to drugs and he wasn’t working for your dad. She said she moved us to my grandmother’s because he was spending too much time with your dad and she was worried about a bad influence.”

  He still wouldn’t look at me and the reason why hit me like a shot to the chest. “You think Leon lied about everything? You think he made up the stuff about your father being a drug addict so he would look less guilty?”

  Worthy sighed and met my eyes. “I just think it’s possible he didn’t know all the facts, that he made assumptions that were false.”

  I heard what he was saying, but I couldn’t believe it. “Why would he be so honest about everything else and lie about that? The only lies my uncle ever told me were to make me believe my father was a better man than he was. Arle was his best friend. Don’t you think he’d make sure of his facts before he said anything negative about him?”

  Worthy flinched and dropped my gaze, and I suspected my words were wasted. He’d already made his decision and facts and logic wouldn’t sway him. But seriously? What the hell? “My mom said there’s no way my dad was doing that stuff and I believe her. I also believed her when she said my dad would never have tried to hurt a little girl. There’s no way things went down the way you and your uncle said they did.”

  I stood, my mixed feelings coalescing into anger. “I think we’re done here.”

  Worthy stood and reached for me, but I backed away. “Just think about it,” he said. “What if you’re wrong? I thought you wanted to know the truth.”

  I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. As angry and hurt as I was, I understood that what he’d learned about his father had been a devastating blow and he was dealing with it in a way that made sense to him, even if it made no sense to me. “I’ve never lied to you, Worthy, and I’ll never lie to myself. If you live your life with anything less than unflinching honesty, especially about the hard stuff, you’re just a paper doll living in a fantasy world. And I’m not a fan of pretending.”

  I turned from Worthy without another word and rushed into the suite bathroom. I knew Bell and Frankie were waiting in my room and I wasn’t ready to talk to them. I needed a few moments to think. Worthy’s suggestions were more dangerous because they made a twisted sort of sense. People did misinterpret situations and memories could be faulty, but the evidence against his father was too great. My uncle had incriminated himself when he admitted to killing Arle. I couldn’t believe he’d tell the truth about that and not admit to a moment’s doubt about what Arle had been about to do. More than that, I remembered Arle’s threat and the press of the gun against my chin. Dreams could be unreliable, but I wouldn’t have stabbed a man who wasn’t about to hurt me. There was just too much evidence suggesting that Worthy’s mother was the one lying and, if he couldn’t see that, nothing I said would change his mind.

  I leaned against one of the sinks and looked at myself in the mirror. Worthy didn’t come after me, didn’t try to follow me into the bathroom. He’d been using me and, now that I knew the truth, I was no more use to him. I sucked back tears, my father’s words echoing in my head, big girls don’t cry, sugarplum. I’d heard those words in my head more than once, but I hadn’t realized until recently that they were my father’s words to me. I pushed down hurt and anger and loss and pulled out my phone. I needed to warn my uncle.

  “Hey, baby girl,” Leon said. “You get back okay?”

  The sound of his voice and his warm concern almost caused the dam holding back my tears to break, but I took a deep breath and womaned the fuck up. “That boy you met back in October, do you remember him?”

  “Sure I do, sugar. I’m not such an old man that I’m losing my memory. Lawrence Hayworth.”

  “Right. Well, Hayworth is his mother’s maiden name. His father’s name was Stanley, Arle Stanley.”

  “I know, sugar. How are you handling that knowledge?”

  “Not so good, Uncle Leon. I mean…Wait a second, you already knew?”

  “Of course I did, sugar. The boy is the spitting image of his mother and Betty keeps up with his Momma. We knew he was going to the same college and you might see him.”

  “You knew he was going to my school. Did you know he was friends with Byron?”

  “No,” he said. “Byron doesn’t talk about his friends with me and, even
if he did, I didn’t know until I met him that he was going by the nickname of Worthy.”

  I paced the bathroom twice before I was calm enough to speak again. “Are you fucking with me right now?”

  “Remington Alice McKinney, you watch your mouth. You are not too old for me to come up there and wash your mouth out with soap.”

  “And I’m not too young to come up there and kick your ass. Uncle Leon, what the hell were you thinking? Don’t you think you should have let me know I was dating the son of the man you killed?”

  “Remington, girl, you need to calm down or I am ending this call. Remember to show some respect.” Uncle Leon’s voice was infuriatingly calm.

  I took a deep breath and counted to ten. “He was using me, Uncle Leon, and he probably wants to hurt me and you, for that matter, to get revenge.”

  “Naw,” Uncle Leon said. “That boy doesn’t want revenge.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” I asked, my teeth clenched so I didn’t go off on him again.

  “When he was at the house, I called him back to the kitchen. Remember, you were waiting on the front porch?”

  “I remember.”

  “Right. So I laid my shotgun on the kitchen table and I stepped away. Told him if he wanted revenge, it was his right. Doesn’t matter why I killed his daddy, just matters I did it. I told him to take his revenge on me.”

  “You did what?” I asked, completely losing any semblance of calm. “What if he’d killed you? What if he’d killed you and then carried the gun out to the front porch and killed me?”

  Leon sighed. “Remington, you really need to calm down.”

  I sucked down three deep breaths and counted to twenty. “I’m calm.”

  “He had no reason to hurt you, Remington. You were just a little girl when I shot his father. And anyone could see the boy is dead-gone in love with you. You were at no risk.”

  “Are you serious right now? How did you manage to keep me alive as long as you did?”

  “Why do you think I kept you at the house and away from people, especially boys?” he asked without missing a beat. “I wasn’t really worried, anyway, Remington. I hadn’t seen anger on his face when I’d told y’all about his daddy.”