I peered over my shoulder once, but no one was in sight. No one could see where I was going.
Grant and Bianca’s car was gone—they must’ve driven down to Breaker Beach together. It was an easy walk except for the slope of the road, which made it near impossible in dress shoes.
Though I’d seen them all down at the dedication ceremony, I peered in the front windows first, hands cupped around my eyes. The lights were off, and there was no movement inside. I rang the bell, then counted to ten before using the key they’d never demanded back.
But that turned unnecessary—the door was already unlocked. The biggest lie of Littleport—a safe place, nothing to fear. As if they were saying even now: No secrets here.
“Hello?” I called as I stepped inside. My voice carried through the downstairs.
The house was deserted. But there was evidence of life. A pair of shoes at the entrance, a jacket tossed over a kitchen stool, chairs off-center in the dining room. This time I didn’t bother with the downstairs, knowing exactly what I was after.
Upstairs, I ignored the closed door of the master, the light shining into Sadie’s untouched room, heading instead for Grant’s office. The locked closet. The files.
The desk looked different than last week—the surface cleared, everything organized. As if Grant had taken his rightful spot, relegating Parker elsewhere. I opened the top desk drawer, moving the assortment of flash drives around—and panicked.
I couldn’t find any key.
Someone must’ve used it recently or hidden it. I stared out the office window and started tearing open the drawers one by one. Empty, empty, empty.
My pulse raced. In desperation, I ran my hands against the underside of the desk drawers, searching for anything. My heart jumped as my nails snagged on a metal bracket, a tiny compartment. I ran my fingers over the surface until I felt the button, and a small drawer popped forward.
I gripped the key firmly in my palm.
Leave it to Grant to put everything back where it belonged. Cleaning up the mess and disorder of his son.
Now I stood in front of that closet with purpose. Pulling out the bound files, stacking them on Grant’s desk.
Faith had never made it this far. She’d sneaked inside, just as we’d done years earlier, but this time with a purpose. She’d told me she was looking for something—anything. Something she could use against the Lomans. But she had not gotten to this. The charity files, the blueprints. The purchase details of the rental properties.
In here were only the things concerning Littleport. I knew what had irked me, had me coming back to this closet once more: a medical file. For things that must’ve happened here.
I flipped open the bound folder marked Medical. Inside were the records from private doctor visits coordinated by people like the Lomans—home visits, so they wouldn’t have to wait in the lobby of urgent care. Anything, for a price.
The first thing I saw was the record for Sadie’s strep test two summers ago. Behind that, an angry rash from a reaction to her new sunscreen. Then a cough that lingered in Grant until Bianca made the call herself, surprising him when the doctor showed up midworkday. Courses of treatment, a history for their records.
I moved back in time, years passing, until a word grabbed my attention—stitches. It was only one sheet, scarce on details.
Parker’s name and date of birth. A diagnosis of laceration. A treatment summary. There was a note about signs to watch out for, a possible concussion. A prescription painkiller. A referral to a plastic surgeon should he need one. My hands started shaking.
And there, at the bottom, beside the doctor’s signature—was the date. Two days after my parents’ accident. As if the Lomans had tried to keep it hidden, avoid suspicion, before they realized they would have to get their son medical attention.
I wondered if that was why he had the scar—if they had waited too long, making sure the investigation was deemed a single-car accident first.
Maybe the second payment that Sadie had copied on the flash drive had gone to him, this doctor who knew that Parker had been significantly injured, and was paid, in turn, for his silence. Who was rewarded for not asking too many questions.
This was it. As close as I could get to the proof. I looked out the window, but the driveway was empty. I took a picture of this document with Parker’s injury, including the date of treatment, and I sent it to Detective Ben Collins’s number, with a note: I need to talk to you about Parker Loman.
Then I sent Connor a text: Is the ceremony still going on?
I checked the window again. Still no car.
I started stacking the files away again, then stopped. I didn’t care if they knew. Grant’s words in my ear, a cruel whisper—that he had overestimated me. Like Faith, I wanted them to know. Who else would know better where to look than someone they had taken into their home?
My life had diverged because of them. Everything I’d lost because of them.
My phone dinged with a response. Not from the detective but from Connor: It’s almost over. Where are you?
I wanted to see Connor, to tell him. He may have kept Faith’s secrets, but he’d also kept mine. And after everything, he deserved to know the truth.
But I needed to find Detective Collins first, ask to speak at the police station, present everything I’d found—calmly, clearly. I didn’t know for sure who’d killed Sadie. Couldn’t prove yet that it was Parker—but I had his motive now. The most important thing was that they believe me.
I had gathered up my things, ready to go, when a door closed somewhere in the house.
I froze, my hands hovering over the desk. I didn’t even breathe. Footsteps on the stairs, and I looked frantically for somewhere to hide. The only place hidden from view was the closet, and all of the paperwork was already out. If the footsteps veered the other way down the hall, I could make a run for it—
“Avery?” The voice was so close. A man. Not Parker. Not Grant. There was no point in hiding. Whoever it was, he was already looking for me.
And then Detective Ben Collins stood in the open office doorway, his forehead knotted in confusion. His eyes scanned the desk, my hands hovering over the top. He took a step into the room. “What are you doing in this house?”
I swallowed nothing, my throat parched. “Did you get my text?”
“Yes,” he said, moving closer to the desk. “And I saw you heading this way earlier. You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing in here?”
I was breaking and entering, and he’d found me. He knew what I’d been looking through and where to find me. Cornered me and caught me red-handed.
“Wait,” I begged, hands held out in front of me. “Just wait, please.” I had to show him right then, before he could change his mind, bring me in, call the Lomans, and I’d never stand a chance. The Lomans could ruin anyone. “I have to show you something.” I rifled through my bag, pulled out everything I’d brought with me. Trying to clear some space on the desk. “Here’s what I sent you,” I said, holding out the medical form for Parker. “See?”
His forehead was scrunched in concentration as he read the document. “I don’t know what I’m looking at here.”
“This is evidence that Parker was hurt the same time my parents died in a car accident.”
He stared at me, green eyes catching the light from the window. I couldn’t read his expression, whether he believed me, whether he was putting things together himself.
“Sadie,” I said, handing him the flash drive, my throat scratching on her name. “She found evidence that her family paid off my grandmother after my parents’ death. One hundred thousand dollars. It’s here.”
He took it from me, frowning. Turning it over in his hand.
“I have more,” I said. I had everything. I tallied the evidence, pushed the folder I’d brought across the desk in his direction. The
matching account number from my grandmother’s checkbook. It had to be enough. “There’s proof that my grandmother paid down her mortgage with this money right after their death. And,” I said, taking out my phone, my hand shaking, “proof that Sadie was hurt at the party last year. Detective, she was there.” I pulled up the photos I’d just taken, handed him my phone, the words tumbling out too fast. Trying to walk him through the course of events—the bloodstain from the bathroom, my belief that someone had taken her from the house, wrapped her in a blanket, lost her phone in the process.
“They used my car. My trunk,” I said, a sob caught in my throat. “The crime scene was there. Not here. She didn’t jump.”
The corners of his mouth tipped down, and he shook his head. “Avery, you have to slow down.”
But that wasn’t right. I had to speed up. Sadie didn’t want a fucking bell, a sad quote. She wanted this. To be seen. To be avenged. And he wasn’t paying attention. What did I need to do to get him to see?
He stared at the photos on my phone, his hand faintly shaking as well, like I’d transferred my fear straight to him. His eyes drifted to the window behind me, and I knew what he was thinking—the Lomans would be back soon.
He had to believe me before they arrived.
“There have to be people in the department who remember the accident,” I said. “Who know something. It was a long time ago, but people remember.” It was horrific, that was what the first officer on the scene said. I had the article with me in that folder on the desk. “Maybe we can talk to the person who was first on-scene. Maybe there’s some evidence that didn’t make sense.” Another piece of proof to link the cases together.
I opened the folder, pulled out the article—so he would remember. Detective Collins had once told me that he knew who I was, what I’d been through—that it was a shitty hand to draw. He was older than me. He must’ve remembered this.
“Can I . . .” He cleared his throat, holding up my phone. “Can I hang on to this?”
I nodded, and he tucked my phone into his pocket, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes, sliding one out, a lighter in the other hand. “Bad habit, I know,” he said. His hand shook as he flicked the lighter twice before it caught. A slow exhale of smoke, eyes closed. “Sometimes it helps, though.”
I imagined the smoke soaking in to the Lomans’ walls, the ornate carpet beneath our feet. How they’d hate it. I almost spoke, on instinct, and then stopped. Who cared?
In the article, there was a black-and-white picture of the road—how had I not seen it before, the same image Sadie had taken on her phone? The arc of trees, so different in the daylight—but it matched.
The article also had a picture of the wreckage left behind. The metal heap of a car, crumpled against a tree. My heart squeezed, and I had to close my eyes, even after all these years.
I skimmed over sentences, paragraphs, until the part I remembered—that had been seared into my mind years earlier.
“The first officer on the scene gave a statement to the reporter,” I said. Reading the words that I’d wanted to forget, for so long. “Here it is. ‘There was nothing I could do. It was just terrible. Horrific. I thought we had lost them all, but when the EMTs arrived, they discovered the woman in the backseat was still alive. Just unconscious.’ The loss will be felt by everyone in the community, including the young officer—”
I stopped reading, the room hollowing out. Couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say the words. Watched, instead, as everything shifted.
He raised his eyebrows, flicked the lighter again. Held it to the base of Parker’s medical paper, letting it catch fire and fall into the stainless-steel trash can.
I stared once more down at the article in my hand. The truth, always inches away, just waiting for me to look again.
The unfinished sentence, our paths crossing over and over, unseen, unknown. Officer Ben Collins.
CHAPTER 29
Smoke spilled from the top of the garbage can, the air dangerous and alive. “You knew,” I said, stepping back.
Detective Ben Collins stood between me and the doorway, not meeting my eye. Systematically dropping page after page into the trash. Each piece of evidence I’d given him, every piece of proof. One after another into the burning trash. He had my phone. My flash drive. The evidence of the payments—
The other payment, the one Sadie had found and copied, stored on the flash drive alongside the payment to my grandmother. That had gone to him. “The Lomans paid you off, too,” I said.
Finally, he looked at me. A man cut into angles, into negative space. “It was an accident. If it helps, he didn’t mean to do it. Some kid speeding past me, driving like a bat out of hell in the middle of the night. I didn’t know it was Parker Loman when I took off after him—he didn’t see the other car coming. The lights must’ve blinded them to the curve. Both of them ended up off the road, but the other car . . .”
“The other car—” I choked out. My parents. There were people inside. People who had been taken from me.
How long had he waited to call the EMTs after Parker Loman stepped from the car? Had Parker asked him to wait while he pressed his hand to the cut on his forehead, seeing what he had done? Or had Grant Loman called in, explained things, convinced him to let his son go—that there was nothing to be done now, no use ruining another life in the process—a plea but also a threat?
Had my parents bled out while he waited? Did they fight it, the darkness, while a young Ben Collins weighed his own life and chose?
The garbage can crackled, a heat between us as we stood on opposite ends of the desk.
“Avery, listen, we were all young.”
I understood that, didn’t I? The terrible choices we made without clarity of thought. On instinct, on emotion, or in a drastic move, just to get things to stop. To change.
“I think about it often,” he said. “I think we all do. And now we’re doing the best we can, all of us. It was terrible, but the Lomans have supported this town through thick and thin, giving back whenever they can. I made a decision when I was twenty-three, and I’ve been trying to make peace with it ever since.” He held one hand out to the side. “I’ve given everything to this place.”
His eyes were wide now, like he was begging me to see it—the person reflected in his eyes. The better person he had become. It was true, if I gave it any thought—he was always the person involved, who volunteered. Who organized the parades, the events. The person people asked to join committees. But all I could see was the lie. It had been built in to the very fabric of who he was now.
“They’re dead!” I was yelling then. Finally, a place to direct my anger. Instead of sinking further into myself. Instead of succumbing to the spiral that caught me and refused to let go.
He flinched. “What do you want, Avery?” Matter-of-fact. Like everything in life was a negotiation.
I shook my head. He was so calm, and the crackle of the flames was eating away at the air, destroying everything again.
I needed to get out of this room, but he was blocking the way.
He stepped to the side, and I instinctively moved back, toward the wall. “We’ll talk to Grant, work something out. Okay?” he said.
But he had it wrong. Of course he couldn’t do that.
“Sadie,” I said, finally understanding. Her flaw was my own—she’d trusted the wrong person. My life was her life. She must’ve taken this same path, landed at his name—and believed he would tell her the truth. “You killed her,” I whispered, hand to my mouth at the truth, at the horror.
He had been the man who had brought her to the party. The man no one had seen.
His eyes drifted shut, and he winced. “No,” he said. But it was desperate, a plea.
I could see it playing out, what she would do—three steps back, finding Ben Collins in the article, just like I had done. Asking him to pick her up, directing him
to the party. Sadie, empowered by what she’d uncovered, believing she had everyone right where she wanted them—for one final, fatal strike. She’d hidden away the money trail; all she needed was him. The money she had stolen from the company—for this. For him. Never seeing the danger in the places where it truly existed. “All she wanted from you was the truth,” I said.
He blinked twice, face stoic, before speaking. “What good would that do now? I’d be burying all of us. And for what? We can’t change the past.”
For what? How could he ask that? For justice. For my parents. For me.
To say the truth—that Parker had been responsible for the death of my parents. Because inside that family was a perpetual power struggle, and Sadie must’ve finally seen a way to bring down her brother. A calculated, fatal move.
But something else had happened behind that locked door during the party. She had misjudged him. Had she pled her case, offered the money, believing he was on her side—before he struck? Or had they argued, the danger slowly shifting from words to violence, until it was too late?
“The blood in the bathroom. You hurt her,” I said in a whisper. Not a car inadvertently driving another off the road. But hands and fists on flesh and bone.
“She slipped,” he said. “It was an accident,” he repeated. “I didn’t know what to do, and I panicked. None of it would bring her back.”
But his words were empty, hollow lies. Sadie was breathing. He had to have known she was breathing. Otherwise, why bring her to the cliffs? The water in her lungs, the fact that it could look like a suicide, the placement of her shoes—the last step of his cover-up. His cool, crisp mind, planning to end one life in order to save what was left of his.
Had the Lomans turned him into a killer years ago? Making him complicit, shifting the line of his own morality, until he could justify even this?
He flipped the flash drive into his palm again, tucked it in his pocket. “She told me there was someone else who had the proof. I always thought it was you.”
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