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“So you’ve seen it then?” I pat my jeans, searching for a lighter. Come up empty. There’s one out on the deck though so I head outside and Adira follows. “Narnia? The letter?”
“I’ve seen it,” he says and hugs his arms across his chest. “The cops came and did a walk-through.”
“Did you read the note?” The threads of tobacco catch fire with the flame, and I inhale until my chest eases. These shitty little cancer sticks are the only thing getting me through the day. “I didn’t read it. Didn’t have time to read it. But I saw it. It was her handwriting.”
I don’t want to read it now. The very thought of it hurts like there’s an elephant sitting on my chest. I have no idea how we move forward from here when she comes home. I have no idea what I’ll say to her. What I’m supposed to say. What I’m supposed to do. If I’ll ever be able to trust her to be out of my sight again.
“I read it.” His gaze grows bright as he takes a seat in one of the wicker loungers. He concentrates on a point on the wood by his feet before he grows resolved. “But I don’t believe it. Can’t believe it. She was sad when I left, but she was doing okay.”
We fall into an uncomfortable silence that is still easier than talking.
“There’s something else.” He clears his throat. “You know how much she hates cameras.”
“I do.”
“I have cameras in Narnia because my collection is worth a fortune. The footage is why I went home first. I wanted to see if the cameras caught anything. There was nothing but static.”
“And blood,” I say.
“So much blood.” He shakes his head.
“She can’t go back there.” I sit opposite him. Tap the ash from my cigarette into the sand in the ashtray. “I don’t want her to have to face that.”
“She didn’t hurt herself.” He sticks his chin out. “There’s no way. The letter doesn’t make sense. Maybe a year ago it would have, but she was turning into this whole other person with you. Getting strong.”
“But she has hurt herself before.” She told me. She was scared that I wouldn’t want to be with her. That I’d see it as a weakness. I brushed it off like it didn’t matter. She survived and that was the past. But what if I was wrong? She was sad and alone because of me. “We can’t pretend that she couldn’t.”
“I always figured that was an accident,” he says. “A mistake.”
She as much as admitted it was. That’s probably another reason why I didn’t take it as seriously as I should have. Never again.
“There’s something else.” I take another drag from the cigarette. “She had bruises. On her arms. A broken wrist. And a cracked rib.”
“Seriously?” Adira pales. “So Alec hurt her.”
“My guess is that he did. Though they’re trying to blame it on me.” I squash the butt into the sand in the ashtray. “Perhaps he was the final straw for her.”
“Oh my God.” Adira covers his mouth with his hand. His eyes are so wide the whites show. “What if he did this to her?”
“Did the cops find anything?”
“No, but…”
“They didn’t have any reason to be suspicious.” The fresh cigarette I pulled from my pack snaps in my fist. If he tried to kill her… “You think he would?”
“I don’t know,” Adira says. “Five days ago I would have said he wouldn’t go so far as to kill his own sister, but that was before… Did she say anything? About what happened?”
“She was stoned on the anesthetic. Tired. Confused. She believed that she and I were married.” It was absolutely adorable how thrilled she was. Made me want to make it real, preferably as soon as possible. “The cops wouldn’t have been able to use it even if she had told them he hurt her.”
“But it’s been days,” he says.
“Which is why, as much as I hate it, Ivy must have known to turn the camera off before she…” I bite back on a sob as I drop the broken cigarette in the tray. My hands are shaking again. “Surely by now they could use a statement if she made one. If she’d told anyone about what happened and he was involved… shouldn’t that knowledge have made it to the police by now? Wouldn’t they arrest him? So he can’t have…”
The door opens and Rebel stumbles out like he’s being chased by screaming fans. His hair is a mess and he struggles to latch his belt. “You have got to see this.”
“What?” Obviously he’s made up with Summer. As much as I would normally make jokes about joining them, that can’t be what he’s talking about.
“Alec is being arrested.” He tugs at his shirt as he turns and races back inside. “It’s about to be live news.”
