Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Jericho’s face darkens. I assume it matches mine because the air between us has shifted palpably.
“Why is your return a secret, Zeke?” he asks.
I asked him to meet me here, only calling him from the airport once I landed in New Orleans. I hadn’t decided up until then if I’d tell him I was back in town. I’m not planning on staying long. Just until I take care of Blue Masterson or whatever the hell her name is. But in order to do that, I need him.
I glance around, making sure we can’t be overheard. We’re sitting in the farthest corner of the club and the others are preoccupied. I reach into my jacket pocket and retrieve my phone. Scrolling down my email, I open the first message I received from Blue Masterson and turn it, so the screen faces him.
Jericho reads it and I watch his face harden. He reaches for the phone, takes it, and opens the attachment which is a newspaper article reporting the deadly crash.
Our father, along with one of his many mistresses, was killed in a car accident in Austria several years ago. For a long time, only I knew it wasn’t an accident. Jericho pieced the puzzle together and confronted me more recently. It was only after that he learned why I did it.
My chest tightens at the thought of why I did what I did. I wonder if this pain is so acute even now, so many years after Zoë’s death, because we were so close once. So close we shared our mother’s womb. We were twins. That bond between us, that connection, it faded as we grew older, but I still remember the feeling of having a second half. A part that was not me but so much a part of me that I still feel the loss of her. I remember the comfort that bond brought me, even when I was too young to put words to it. The pain of losing her, and the way I lost her, it’s a heavy, solid thing that is unchanging. Unending.
It is pain. Just pain.
Jericho looks back at me, a furrow between his brows, his eyes narrowed with fury.
“How long have you been sitting on this?”
“Couple months.”
“Months? And she sent this?” he gestures toward the curtain Blue disappeared behind.
I nod.
“You’re sure?”
“I have a reliable source.” I drink another sip of whiskey and take my phone back.
“How would she have found out?” The evidence Jericho had to put the pieces together was footage from the hotel I’d stayed in while doing what I needed to do when I was in Austria. There is nothing that puts me at the scene of the crime because as far as the world knows, there was no crime. The car and its occupants were burnt up so badly there was no physical evidence to investigate.
I wonder if he died on impact. It’s how the coroner said it would have happened considering the cliff they drove off. I hope it wasn’t instantaneous. Not for him. I hope he felt fear followed by the pain of a fiery death. I hope it lasted and lasted while he burned and burned.
“Zeke,” Jericho calls me into the present.
I grit my teeth, darkness at the thought of the past settling in my gut. I swallow back the pain, the emotion, the guilt. Not guilt over the murder of my father. No. Guilt for the loss of Zoë. For what she endured. For my being absent to her just as I blame Jericho for being absent from us.
“Yeah?” I ask, eyes narrowed, heart rate settled, any emotion locked back up.
“What does she know exactly and how does she know it?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out.”
“There’s no evidence.”
I raise my eyebrows in question.
Jericho draws a tight breath in. “How are you going to find out?”
“The Bishop house is still empty?” Matty inherited the Bishop house which is part of Jericho’s property now. Once he is of age, he’ll come into his inheritance, which includes the house.
Jericho nods. “It’s closed up. Been that way since Bishop was killed.”
“It’s private then.”
He nods again. “I can have someone go out there. Open it up for you.”
“I don’t want anyone to know I’m here. Not yet.”
He lifts his chin, studies me in that way he has, the silence drawn out just a little longer than necessary. He disagrees with this part.
“If I need to take care of things…” I trail off, unsure myself how far I’m willing to go to keep my secret. To keep Zoë’s. I’ve killed twice. I am capable. Maybe that’s what worries my brother.
He shifts his gaze once more to the curtain from which Blue Masterson has yet to emerge. I watch Jericho. His hands aren’t exactly squeaky clean. His past is possibly more violent than mine. At least up until this point.