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“What the fuck does Cooper have to do with any of this? It’s not a surprise that he would tell you to stay away, though. He was always protective of Avery.” Oz tips his head in thought.
“Yeah, I’m sure that’s why she trusted him right back,” I snarl.
I attempt to explain the rest, but Evander interrupts me.
“When I went to the hospital to talk to Avery, she told me where she worked and what she does,” he starts. I listen to him explain Avery’s job and how she helped trafficked victims, picking up the details I’d missed last night.
“What I didn’t know was that Avery is gifted too,” Evander tells everyone. I would argue that it’s not his secret to tell, but I don’t think I have a leg to stand on right now.
“What do you mean, she’s gifted?”
“I mean, she’s a walking, talking human lie detector.”
“Impossible,” Zig states.
We all look at him. His missus can heal people, and Astrid can see a person’s death before it happens, but he thinks this is impossible?
“No. I mean, impossible that she wouldn’t have told us. Why hide it?”
“Because she wanted to belong. She wanted that family you dangled in front of her like a carrot. Her family was shit, and it messed her up,” Ev answers.
“Shit how? She never said anything other than they were dead.” Zig looks at me.
I open my mouth before snapping it shut again.
Zig huffs when I don’t answer.
“Hawk?”
“I don’t know. She just said they’d died when she was a kid. I didn’t want to upset her, so I didn’t push for more.”
I don’t like the looks I’m getting, but I can’t say they’re not justified.
“Mom was a famous ballerina. Dad was a world-renowned choreographer,” Evander chimes in, making my head snap in his direction.
“A man broke into their family home when Avery was at a friend’s. house. He raped the mother and broke both her legs. Avery found her when she came home early that night because she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Jesus, how the fuck do you know this?”
“It’s my job. Anyway, the dad was found at his mistress’s house. There was a big media scandal about it. Mom’s ballet career was over. She was confined to a wheelchair and—from what I could find—heavily medicated for both pain and depression. The needier she got, the more time her dad spent with other women, leaving Avery to deal with the fallout.
“A year to the day of the original attack, neighbors reported hearing screams coming from the house just before lunchtime. By the time the cops got there, both mom and dad were dead in what they initially thought was a murder-suicide. The gun used had mom’s prints all over it.”
The silence is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
“They figured out quickly that it was staged.”
“So, someone killed them. The mistress?” Crew asks.
“Cops figured mom had a stalker. Found emails going back years. Nobody was ever arrested. When no one came forward to take Avery in, the police decided it would be best to put her in witness protection just in case. Give her a new name and relocate her.”
“So, she lost her mom, dad, and everything she knew, all in one fell swoop?” Slade chokes.
Ev nods. “I had to break some sealed files to find this out, but yeah. She would have been told not to talk about it. She is, for all intents and purposes, now Avery Clancy. Or she was until she got married. She didn’t hide who she was out of spite, but safety.”
Ev looks at me, but I wave him off, still in shock. “I can’t even... I don’t know what to say. Wait, she said she was in foster care. Why didn’t she end up with a family? Surely, she would have been a priority for fostering.”
“The agency thought it would be safer for her to get lost in the system. They kept tabs on her, but they made sure she was never fostered, which wasn’t hard. Nobody knew who she was, and all they saw was a kid scared of shadows who screamed herself to sleep every night. I’ve read the case file. It’s not an easy read.”
