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“If it weren’t for the reward money, would you two still be doing this?” Jordan asks.
“I don’t know if we’d actually be doing this,” Rory says. “But we’d definitely go to the Steel family with what we know.”
“The problem is,” I say, “it would just be hearsay at that point. It’s something I heard Pat Lamone say. He would deny it. We may not get the reward money unless it’s clear and cohesive evidence.”
Jordan scoffs. “I swear to God, Callie. Were you born with law books in your head?”
Though I know my cousin doesn’t mean the statement as a compliment, I take it as such. “One day… One day I’ll be the best fucking lawyer in the free world.”
Those words come back to me so clearly. Funny. Here I am, age twenty-six, and no closer to that goal than I was then.
“I’m waiting,” Donny says.
“We didn’t have any evidence at first,” I say. “I heard the person who did it bragging about it the next week when I was hanging around in the algebra room after school.”
“And you didn’t go to anyone?”
“He would have just denied it. You wouldn’t have had any evidence.”
“We’re the Steels. We would have gotten the evidence.”
I widen my eyes. Yes, the Steels. They get what they want because they pay for it.
I’m learning more and more about the Steel family. I love their son. I love this man across from me more than I love the air that I breathe.
But the Steels…
They do have skeletons in their closet.
Some of which are coming to the surface now, which is why Donny is giving me this choice in the first place.
Perhaps I should take him up on it. Perhaps that would be less painful than to have him dump me—and he may very well dump me—when he finds out I actually had evidence all those years ago.
But Donny is not his family. Just like I’m not my family.
“I was a kid. I wasn’t quite sixteen, and Rory was barely eighteen. We knew your family wouldn’t pay for hearsay evidence, so we set out to get actual evidence.”
“And you weren’t successful?”
“Actually…we were.”
Donny’s cheeks redden. “Then why the hell didn’t you give it to us? We would have paid handsomely. Surely you could have used the money.”
“Yes, we could have. That was our original intent. To claim the reward money when we gave you the actual evidence.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“We couldn’t. Not without destroying ourselves and our family.”
Donny sucks in a breath and holds it for what seems like longer than he should, and then he finally lets it out in a whooshing sigh.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “You were just a kid. You and Rory both. This is what you’ve been trying to tell me, isn’t it?”
I nod. “I’ve wanted to tell you, but I’ve been afraid.”
“Afraid that I would react exactly as I did.”
“Well…yeah.”
