Page 131 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

“No,” she whispers, although I knew before she said anything that something was wrong.

She turns the screen to me.

There’s a white glow from the clean start-up page.Hello, it says.

For a second, my brain refuses to understand it. Then it comes together with a sickening click.

Jake must’ve remote-wiped her phone.

Lennon’s thumb drags uselessly across a screen that no longer recognizes her.

Jake pushes to his knees, cradling his ribs.

“Poor thing,” he says, and the gentleness in his tone is worse than the blood. “You’re confused. Your phone got a virus, honey. Don’t you remember? We had to do a factory reset.”

My hands curl.

There are sirens in the distance now, closer than before.

Jake hears them too and his eyes sharpen.

Here we go, his face says. Time for another round of the game he’s been winning our whole lives.

I uncurl my fists.

For years, I thought the worst thing I could do was prove Jake right.

Lose control and swing first. Become the maniac he’d been introducing to rooms before I ever stepped into them.

But Jake was never really afraid I’d be violent.

He’s been afraid of the day I stopped believing the story he told me about me. And started realizing he’s been lying about the story he told about himself, too.

Because then I might glimpse the truth of him. And nothing is more dangerous to a man with murderous secrets in his closets than the truth… or the one person in the world who might be able to guess them.

Come to think of it, when Mom put me in the wilderness facility the first time, part of why I’d been so uncontrollable was because I’d been convinced there was no way Dad would ever kill himself, and Mom put me in there because I couldn’t “accept reality.” What if really, I was just too close to guessing her secret? And she had to keep Jake on a weirdly close tether his whole life because he was the one other person on earth whoknew?

The first police cruiser turns into the gas station lot, lights washing blue and red over the mud.

Jake closes his eyes like a man in pain. Then he turns toward the sound, holds both hands up high, and starts screaming bloody murder as he gets up and runs crookedly toward the nearest cruiser: “Help! Help, he’s trying to kill me!”

THIRTY-FOUR

LENNON

For one impossible second,I can only stare at Jake as he runs toward the cruiser with his hands in the air screaming for help.

Even with blood smeared over his mouth and mud up one side of his shirt, after stealing August’s truck and dragging me into another nightmare I had to crash my way out of, he still knows exactly how to shapeshift into the perfect victim for an audience.

He limps, as if wounded more gravely than he is. He trembles like he’s afraid, but reasonable, and brave enough to ask for help.

My husband, the eternal victim.

The first cruiser fishtails a little as it turns in from the road, blue and red lights washing over the ditch. A second set of lights sweeps in behind it, brighter and harsher, cutting through the mud-dark until the whole world has turned into a red and blue disco.

The gas station alarm is still shrieking from where Jake tore away from the pump. Somewhere near the store, the clerkhas stopped walking toward us and is holding his phone out with both hands. I don’t know if he’s still talking to the 911 receptionist, filming, or both. I hope both. I hope the whole damn universe is filming.

August stands beside me in the ditch, breathing hard.