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“Didn’t expect me to figure it out?” I asked, my voice tight. Where the hell was Malcolm? “Tell me why you killed his girlfriend. They found her body the night you kidnapped Ava.”
Drew stepped out of the shadows. “Because she figured out what I was doing and was going to tell my brother.”
“And what was it that she figured out?”
“You really haven’t figured it out?” he demanded, his eyes blazing.
No, but I wasn’t about to admit that to him, so I’d work through what I knew with this new lens. “You were at the Petermans’ house the morning after the kidnapping. You put the photo in my car then. But why’d you steal it in the first place?”
“I didn’t take it. My stupid brother did. He moved in with my dad after he got out of prison, and he saw your name on the news. He said he never got a memento from your sister, and he wanted one.”
So Malcolm and I had been right about that.
“Did your brother help John Michael Stevens?”
He laughed, but it was dripping with resentment. “No, but he watched through the window. And he took photos. When my dad found the photos, he lost his shit.”
“So you lied about not knowing your dad warned Stevens.”
“Back then? I didn’t know for sure, but I guessed. Before Stevens took your sister, Dad was adamant that Danny would grow out of his weirdness, as he called it. He couldn’t let himself see that Danny had always been a little creep. He was friends with that monster, Stevens. I knew the guy was creepy as fuck, but when I told my mom, she refused to listen. Just like our father.”
“You could have turned him in.”
“It would have killed my mother.”
Bitterness oozed from my soul. “So instead, you let him kill my sister.”
“My brother never touched her!” Drew shouted. “He only watched.”
“Gee,” I said sarcastically. “That makes it all okay, doesn’t it?”
“I never said it did! My father should have done something, and he didn’t. When he found the photos and realized what Danny had been doing, he felt responsible. Like he should have listened to me and gotten Danny help. He was afraid Stevens would rat Danny out when he got arrested, so he warned Stevens about the bust and said if Stevens ever told, Dad would kill his mother.”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Stevens told me last night,” I said. “Is your father planning on killing her now?”
“The old bitch died two years ago,” he sneered.
I rolled my eyes in disgust. “Sorry you lost your insurance policy.”
“Not mine. My father’s. He never would give up on Danny. Not even when he killed that guy in a bar fight.”
“So what is happening right now?” I asked. “Who kidnapped Ava? You?”
Pride filled his eyes.
“Why?”
“I had a chance to gain two things at once. Get my brother put behind bars for good and fuck with you.”
His statement was like a slap to the face. “What did I ever do to you?”
“Your family destroyed mine. Your mother made mine an outcast after my father left with her gossip and her snipes. And your father wanted to put my dad in jail. He only agreed to stand off after Dad said he’d leave town.”
“Yeah, after he warned the man who was responsible for Andi’s kidnapping that he was about to be arrested!”
“Then when you toss in what Danny did…” He shook his head. “We never stood a chance.”
“I’m supposed to accept responsibility for any of that?” I shouted. “For your psycho brother’s bad choices? Well, fuck you, you fucking asshole!”
