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It’s silent for a long minute.
“Did you ever wonder why Zoë didn’t leave a note?” I ask him, not ready to talk about dad. About what I learned in Austria.
He clears his throat, looks to the fire when I shift my gaze to him. “Yeah. Of course.”
“If she’d said why…”
A shadow crosses his face, he looks down at his lap and swirls the whiskey around. They were twins so I’m not sure how different that is than being a sibling. Does he feel her loss more acutely? Does he feel it still? It’s been more than a decade.
“She’d still be dead,” he finally says.
“But if we knew why—”
“It wouldn’t matter,” he snaps, eyes hard on me. “She’d still be dead.”
“I heard you the first time.”
“Did you?”
“What were you doing in Austria the day our father was killed?”
It’s too dark for me to read his features but I swear I see a flash of surprise in the way his mouth opens then closes. He snort-laughs, bringing the glass to his lips, and swallows the rest of his whiskey. He pours himself another. Swallows that too. His movements are reckless suddenly.
“Is that where you were?”
I nod, never taking my eyes off him.
“What did you do, Zeke?”
He shakes his head. “You didn’t see her like that, did you? Just me and mom.”
I turn away, guilty. I know he’s referring to Zoë. To when he found her. I wasn’t home that night. I didn’t hear what had happened until two days later when I turned my phone back on. I had a habit of disappearing. Taking trips and vanishing. I was always good at it. When things got shitty at home, I left. When dad drank, I took off. Zeke and Zoë were stuck, though. Sixteen. Too young to get away. They put up with our father’s dark moods. His punishments. They and our mother.
“Do you know what a person who’s been hanging for a few hours looks like?”
I swallow the contents of my glass over the lump in my throat.
“I won’t describe it. I don’t want you to see that in your nightmares.”
I turn to him. “I should have been here,” I say, voice thick. “I should have been the one to find her. Or dad should have.”
“No. Not dad.” A darkness more complete than anything else morphs his face into something different. Something monstrous. Or maybe it’s the fire playing a trick on me.
“Then me.”
He shakes his head. “It had to be me. There’s a reason for it. Maybe she planned it. I don’t know.” He looks to the fire again. “She tried to tell me you know. If I think back on it, she tried.”
“Tried to tell you what?”
“Me finding her was my punishment.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
He leans the back of his head against the chair and looks up at the ceiling. “Dad deserved what happened to him. Zoë didn’t.” He stands, turns to me. “As far as Austria goes, I took care of what needed to be taken care of. Just as I don’t get to question your motives with Isabelle, you don’t get to question mine where Zoë is concerned. You weren’t here. You didn’t see her. You didn’t cut her down. You didn’t know what she endured. So, if you want to play detective in Austria, be my fucking guest. But know that I’m no different than you, brother.”
9
Isabelle
Jericho stumbles into the bedroom long after I’ve fallen asleep, waking me when he knocks into something. I open my eyes and see the shadow of him in the dark room. I don’t move but watch as he strips off his clothes, muttering something under his breath. He’s drunk. I can see it in the way he moves. When he climbs into bed a moment later, I smell it.
“I know you’re awake,” he says.
I roll onto my side to face him. “You were gone overnight,” I say.
He stares up at the ceiling, blinks without comment. I’m not sure he’s listening to me. He seems distracted.
“Were you with Julia?” I don’t know why I ask it. I don’t really believe he was. But her perfume clinging to him, I don’t know, I didn’t like it. I remember how she acted when he walked in on us talking at the chapel. Remember her asking about the sex. And I just don’t like it.
He turns to me. “You think I’d sleep with Julia Bishop?”
I don’t like how that sounds. The words out there like that. “Did you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Isabelle. Go to sleep.”
I sit up on one elbow when he rolls onto his side away from me. “It’s not so ridiculous. She’s a beautiful woman. Closer to your age. More sophisticated than me. More experienced. More—”
I don’t get to finish because he rolls back, grabs my arms, and has me on my back, straddling me.
