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A childish part of me wants to rub it in Marnie’s face. I’ve tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but I think Rhys is right. She didn’t do anything to help me. She did everything to hurt me. She hates me because my dad loved me, and nothing I do will ever change the way she feels about me. So I’m not going to try. I’m going to celebrate my success with the man I love and leave her out of it.
Holy crap. I won. I actually have a job now.
“Ouch,” I mutter, careening into Rhys’s desk mid-happy dance. My feet come out from beneath me and I land in a heap on the floor. I flop onto my back and laugh loudly, glad he wasn’t here to see that. He’d probably lose his mind.
My gaze catches on a file sticking out from beneath his desk. It’s tucked between the reinforcement boards and the shelf where his laptop sits as if he intended to hide it there. I stare at it for a long moment, trying to figure out why he’d hide a file when he lives alone, and then realization dawns. He hid it from me.
It’s my dad’s file.
I sit up, my heart thumping against my ribcage. Without even thinking about it, I reach for it. My hand closes around the thick file, plucking it from its hiding place. Then and only then do I pause. Whatever he knows is in this file. Whatever he’s hiding is in here.
My mind and heart briefly war. One says to put it back and wait. To trust that he’ll tell me. The other says that I have a right to know. That this is my father. That side wins. Not because I don’t trust Rhys, but because this is my father. I promised I wouldn’t go looking for answers and I’ve kept my promise. But when the answers are in my hands, I can’t put them back and pretend I don’t have a right to know.
I open the file.
The first thing that falls out is a stack of photos. I immediately set those aside without even looking at them. I’ve seen enough true crime to know I don’t want to see what they contain. Some images, you can’t erase. I don’t need to see crime scene photos or my dad lying on the floor. I don’t need to see the autopsy photos. I want my memories to be full of him laughing and smiling, of the crinkles around his blue eyes and the humor that always glinted in them.
I also set the autopsy report aside. I know what killed him. Blunt force trauma to the head. Skull fractures. Whoever attacked him knocked him over the coffee table. He landed on his back, his head cracking against the stone fireplace. All so they could take a couple of thousand dollars from his office, a handgun, a Rolex he never wore, and some of Marnie’s jewelry.
I set the police report aside too. I’ve already read it front to back. It’s been splashed all over the news. There’s nothing there that I don’t already know. The whole world knows what it contains.
The next sheaf of papers confuses me. They’re about the company, but I don’t understand what they mean. Financial documents with notes jotted in the margins, newspaper articles on mergers and acquisitions. There are several about Marcellus Moretti.
I know that name. Everyone knows Marcellus Moretti’s name. He’s a mobster in New York, one of the biggest there is. At least that’s what everyone says. Why is his name mixed up with my dad’s case? Does Rhys think he has something to do with my dad’s death?
His warning about not being able to unknow things floats to the surface of my mind.
Everyone has secrets, songbird.
I shiver and set aside the articles about Marcellus Moretti. If Rhys thinks my dad was tangled up with him, he’s wrong. My dad would never get involved with a man like him, not ever. I may not know everything about him, but I know that much.
The only other thing in the file is a notebook. I pick it up and flip through, finding page after page of Rhys’s notes. He writes in tiny, bold print. It’s masculine and elegant at the same time. Scooping everything back into the file, I climb to my feet and carry it into the bathroom with me. I set it on the counter and take care of business.
Once I’m done, I pick it up and carry it back to the bedroom with me before sitting down in his desk chair to read through the notebook. The first few pages don’t tell me much. I don’t even understand half of it. They’re written in some police speak that reads like a foreign language.
And then I get to the timeline. I scan through it, a helpless witness to a trainwreck. I know I should stop and look away, and yet I can’t. It gets worse and worse, the wreckage piling up. My stomach heaves as I finally understand what Rhys has been trying so hard to protect me from. My instinct was right the other day.
Marnie killed my dad.
But I was wrong too.
There was never a choice between heaven and hell for me and Rhys. There was never a choice at all. It was always hell for us. It was always destruction. Because he knew she did it. From the very beginning, he knew.
“Oh God,” I cry, my stomach heaving. I leap up from the chair, toppling it backward as I rush into the bathroom.
I land on my knees beside the toilet, collapsing as my heart shatters. As everything shatters. And I break.
I leave everything at Rhys’s. My phone, my clothes. Everything except the case file. I grab it, throw on a dress, and leave. I stop by the bar long enough to pick up my tips, promising Tawnie that I’ll come back later to discuss my schedule. She knows something is wrong.
She asks me five different times if I’m okay.
I don’t even answer her the last time. I just stumble out, headed for the ferry. I have to get off the island before Rhys comes looking for me. Before he realizes that I know everything. It’s not raining this time, thank God.
I manage to rush on at the last minute and make my way up to the passenger deck. It’s crowded this time. I curl up in the corner and stare out the window. Tears slip down my cheeks, but I don’t make a sound. I don’t breathe until the ferry pushes away from the island, leaving Rhys far behind.
I don’t go to the police. Not yet. I go to Seattle.
The taxi pulls up in front of my dad’s house a little after six. He eyes me speculatively, no doubt hoping for a big tip. I push a bunch of bills in his direction, not even looking at them. It should cover the trip from Anacortes and his tip.
