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“He was always drinking.”
“No, not like that. It’s bad now. I don’t know what’s going on in his head. I hope it’s that he feels like an asshole for what’s happening to you.”
“He shouldn’t. He couldn’t have stopped Damian.”
“What happened to your hands?”
“Oh. I fell.”
He raises his eyebrows. “You fell? Or did he hurt you?”
“He?” I’m confused for a moment but then I realize he means Damian. “No, Damian doesn’t hurt me.”
From the look on his face, I’m not sure he believes me.
“I mean it. I fell into broken glass. He picked it out, actually. And bandaged me up.”
“If he raises a hand to you—”
“He won’t. I promise. He’s not like that.” It’s strange, saying this to Liam, but it’s true. When it comes to me, at least.
“Those goons with you?” Liam asks, sipping from his cup as he gestures with his eyes at the two men standing across the street.
“I think only that goon is with me,” I say, nodding my head toward Cash although the men across the street seem goonish enough to work for Damian.
“So, I learned some interesting things you might want to know about.”
“Yeah?”
Liam reaches into his backpack and extracts his laptop but doesn’t open it yet. He just sets it on his lap.
“Did you know Annabel was paralyzed from the waist down?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“I found some hospital records,” he starts, opening his laptop and turning it toward me as he looks behind us. Liam has a talent for finding things online most people don’t have access to. I guess he’s an amateur hacker. I don’t know everything he’s done, he’s pretty secretive about it, but I do know he’s been able to hack into his high school’s system to change a grade or two. I have a feeling that’s the most innocent thing on his resume.
“How?”
He shrugs a shoulder. “I’ll give you the gist of it. She was just a normal kid until she was about six. Homeschooled and no friends and shit, but otherwise as normal as you can be growing up in that family. But she was hospitalized for some time after a bad fall.”
“A fall?” My mind immediately moves to the broken railing in the solarium.
“She broke her back.”
I scroll through the records, look at photos, pick up bits and pieces of text although most of it is written in lingo I don’t understand since I’m not a doctor.
“Do you know where the fall took place?”
He takes the laptop back, and I follow his finger strokes as he toggles between screens.
“Solarium.”
He turns it back to me, and I swallow. It’s the solarium where I’d been just yesterday, where I’d felt like I was being watched. Where I’d seen that doll.
I shudder.
“Police report,” Liam adds on. “I guess one of the maids had called it in since the parents weren’t around, and when the ambulance came, so did the cops.”
It looks very different to the overgrown broken glass house I was in yesterday. Well maintained. I can almost imagine how it must have smelled with all the roses blooming up along the staircase.
“She was playing in the solarium with Damian at the time of the accident.”
“What?”
“He was a couple of years older than her. I guess it’s nice he played with her.”
“Was anyone else with them?” I ask, remembering what I overheard in the study this morning. The comment Lucas made about accidents happening around Damian. The mention of Annabel.
“Not according to the report. They were the only two home along with the maid. Elise or someone.”
“Elise is still there.” I look at the photo of Elise as a younger woman. I wonder if she was a bitch back then too. She looks like one.
“That’s where she fell from?” I point to the place.
“Looks like the railing was loose.”
“It’s still loose. Or it was,” I tell him as I close the lid of the laptop. “Actually, the solarium is gone now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Someone burned it down. Arson.”
“What?”
“That’s why we’re here. That place is like a fortress, but someone got in and set fire to the solarium. I have no idea why they’d choose that building instead of the house. Damian said it was to send a message.”
“Who sent a message?”
“A man named Clementi. He had some work with Dad too, according to Damian.”
“Clementi.” He jots the name down on the palm of his hand. “Someone got on the grounds of the Di Santo house?”
I nod.
“It has to be an inside job. Found this aerial image, too.” He flips to another photo, and I see a vague image of the house and the grounds taken from a drone maybe. It’s not quite clear, but I can see how secure it is with the mountain and forest, the tall stone fencing where there isn’t a natural barrier and, of course, the guard tower.
