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After glancing around, I trailed after Alistair. We left the room with the casket, entering a hall. He took me to a private sitting room, separate from the rest of the crowd that had come to pay their respects, and once I was inside, he closed the door.
We were alone.
In all the time I’d known him, I didn’t think we’d ever been alone before. Being in a room with him, with no one else around, with no one able to peek inside and see us… it was the opposite of a comfortable feeling. I didn’t like being alone with Alistair. I didn’t trust him; a far cry from what I felt towards Veronica.
“Alistair, what’s this about?” I asked, sounding grumpy—but that’s because I was. All these people who’d come today… they didn’t know my brother. The story was that someone had threatened his family, and that’s why he agreed to meet whoever at the motel, not that he’d taken some whore from a bar there to fuck for a while.
What would they say if they knew the truth? Would they still revere my brother so? The local stud, the local hero, befriending and marrying into the Montgomery family, the family who’d basically started to take over Eastcreek the second they’d bought up all that land for their ridiculously huge manor.
Alistair gestured to a pair of chairs on the left side of the room, working to unbutton his suit jacket before he sat down. He waited until I was in the seat beside his to say, “I know you don’t want to speak with me, but given recent events, I think it’s time you and I are on the same page.”
Given recent events? Was he talking about my brother’s murder? I had zero clue why he and I should be on the same page, ever. As long as we were amicable, that was fine. I didn’t need to be friends with the guy or anything.
“You’ve decided to drop out of college to stay in Eastcreek, haven’t you?” Alistair asked, sounding bored. “To be close to our nephew and, of course, my sister.”
The last bit of that made me grind my teeth. All this time, I’d thought I’d done a better job at keeping my… let’s just call itfascinationfor Veronica off everyone’s radar. Apparently not. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, Alistair.”
“I want you to apply to the academy. You’ll pass with flying colors, of course, and by that time there will be a vacancy in the Eastcreek sheriff’s department. It’s always good to have someone on the inside.”
He wanted me to become a sheriff? Why the fuck would I do that?
Alistair’s icy blue eyes narrowed at me, his mouth tugging into a slight frown as he leaned toward me, just a bit. Enough that it was noticeable. “And you will do this for me, for Veronica, because I know.”
My heart beat hard hearing that, and still I managed to mutter, “Know what?”
His voice was as calculated and cold as ever as he told me, “I know you’re the one that killed him. I know you’ve been planning to do so for a while now. Who do you think paid off forensics, Rick? Your fingerprints were all over the crime scene.” He made a tsk-tsk sound. “You should’ve worn gloves, my friend.”
“We are not friends,” I growled out, wishing I had something sharp so I could kill him, too. Never thought I’d become a cold-blooded killer, but here we were. Life tended to throw you curveballs you couldn’t expect.
“Aren’t we? I helped cover it up. If I wanted, I could have the evidence come to light, so I highly suggest you think about my proposition carefully, Rick. Work for me, and I’ll keep your crime covered up for the rest of your life. No one has to know you killed your own brother because you were in love with his wife.”
The words hit me hard, like bricks, and if I wasn’t already sitting down… let’s just say I was glad I was. “Does Veronica know?”
“No, she doesn’t. She is—” Alistair paused, tapping the armrest of the chair as he thought. “—unaware of your feelings for her, as she is in the dark about this proposal and the reason behind it. Veronica is a kind soul. She’s not like you and I.”
You and I.The words echoed in my head, and they made me think there was more to it Alistair wasn’t saying, more to him than I had ever known. For the first time, I sensed something other than the aloof, distant mask he wore when around other people, something hiding behind the emotionless facade.
A darkness, tucked away deep. A darkness like the stuff in me, the stuff that made me kill my own brother.
“So,” Alistair spoke, eyeing me up with disinterest, “do we have a deal? Or shall I make the call and have your face plastered across every news station in the state within the hour?” The threat was not an idle one; it carried weight, much more weight than most people could handle.
I didn’t want to accept his offer. I sure as shit never saw myself becoming any type of law enforcement, but… fuck. What choice did I have? If I refused, and Alistair made good on his threat, I’d never see Veronica again.
In the end, I did the only thing I could: I accepted.
But, of course, accepting an offer from Alistair was like making a deal with the devil. It meant you were constantly under his service, under his watch, and he never let you go, never let you forget what had landed you in his sights in the first place.
I thought, for the longest time, Alistair was the devil. As I graduated from the police academy and easily beat out others for a position in Eastcreek, I grew a steady hatred for the man. He’d greased all the wheels he could to get me right where he wanted me, because, in his words, it was always nice to have friends in certain places.
It wasn’t until Gareth was older that I learned why—and when I discovered that Alistair wasn’t the devil.
Gareth was.
Six years after my brother’s service, we had another. This one for Veronica. Gareth was a mere twelve years old, but when I got the call from Alistair and I came rushing to Montgomery Manor… when I saw Gareth covered in his mother’s blood, looking not at all concerned about it, I knew, and I hated him for it, just like I’d hated my brother.
I saw Veronica lying on the floor in the dining room, a knife protruding from her neck, a single wound in what looked like countless. I blinked and, for a split second, saw my brother’s body in that motel room.
And Gareth… God, Gareth just stood there, coated in red, not saying a word. Alistair, on the other hand, had pulled me aside, tearing me away from Veronica’s corpse and the boy who’d done it.
