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We’d get to the bottom of this. It wasn’t even a true frame job, so to speak, since Neo had been the one to do it all. We were just helping point fingers in the right direction.
Rick and I were efficient. We were out of the house by eight, and as Rick pulled away, you could see the orange hue of the fire in the living room burning brighter. Once the fire got big enough, and the night dark enough, you’d be able to see the glow from the road. Whether or not anyone would investigate and call the fire department was up in the air.
If no one did, well, it wasn’t any skin off my back. Neo was dead, and even if Erin’s phone burned up completely, her car was still parked in the detached garage.
Rick took me home, where Gareth and Brianna should be waiting, along with Nicole, who’d called a few times throughout the afternoon and evening to ask where I was. I’d ignored every call, not wanting to speak to her. She was nothing but a cover, and the more days that passed, the harder it became for me to pretend.
I didn’t want Nicole. I never did. From the beginning, I’d wanted Brianna, as wrong as it was.
As I unbuckled my seatbelt to get out of the car, Rick let out a weary sigh, and though I didn’t really care, I looked at him and waited for him to say whatever it was he wanted to say.
“I’m not going to stop,” he told me, and I lifted my brows, waiting for him to say more. His green eyes stared at Montgomery Manor, not at me, almost like he couldn’t look at me while he said it. “Brianna has every right to decide who she’s with.”
“It isn’t like you could ever go out with her in public,” I pointed out, sounding bored.
“Neither could you,” Rick threw back the truth, finally turning his head and meeting my stare. “I was going to leave, you know. Sometime after the wedding. I didn’t really have a plan. I was just… gonna go. I’ve been saving up for a while, enough to buy me a house somewhere far, far away from this shithole of a town, far away from Gareth and all the bodies he leaves, and far away from you. You were a reminder of what I did, and that kid… he’s always been a reminder of what I lost, what he took from me.”
My sister, the woman who had somehow inspired such loyalty that he felt he had to murder his brother for cheating on her. I guess I should’ve paid more attention to it all at the time, because I would’ve done the same thing. Granted, I was young, and I’d thought—I’d hoped—that my sister had finally found the happiness she’d sought for so long.
Rick went on, “When I heard you were getting a new stepdaughter, I knew I had to warn her somehow, without tripping your freaky senses, so when she slipped away at the wedding, I followed her. At the time, she thought us meeting in the gardens was by chance. She didn’t know who I was. I didn’t tell her. I couldn’t.”
He rolled his shoulder, grimacing somewhat, reminding me he and Gareth had gotten into it just last night. Must’ve felt like forever ago to him. “We talked. We talked a lot. I wasn’t expecting to feel anything for her, but the more we talked, the more I could feel it. There was something, a connection, a pull, whatever you want to call it.”
I didn’t say a thing, knowing he wasn’t done yet.
“I didn’t know it at the time, I didn’t realize it, but meeting her… it changed everything. I couldn’t pack everything up and leave town, not when I knew she was being subjected to God knows what in this house, with Gareth. I couldn’t go, knowing she was in danger.”
Rick rubbed the tattoo on his hand, the eye he’d gotten just after my sister was killed. The all-knowing eye was supposed to lend him wisdom, though I doubted it was anything more than a reminder of the past.
“And then… everything went to hell and back. She almost died, an accident, Gareth says, but we both know it wasn’t. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and when she stumbled into my office, wanting to report her friend missing, I made a deal with her. I told her I’d look into her friend behind your back if she searched the manor for whatever you have on me.”
I figured as much. She’d found the file I had on her in my desk, and there was only one reason she’d be looking through it. To find something, to find something for someone else because she had no dog in this fight.
“What I’m saying, Alistair, is that I ain’t pulling back. I’m not gonna stop.”
Letting out an even breath, I nodded once. “I assumed as much. How else would you have found her in that house?” Rick frowned at that, but I shrugged. “I don’t care if you tracked her. You’re the reason we found her, and whether you believe it or not, I am grateful for that. She is able to showcase both the best and the worst in us, somehow.”
“Once all this shit with Neo calms down and we find her friend’s and the parents’ bodies, you have to promise me you’ll keep an eye on that boy. I’m not in that house with you. I’m not there to stop him, so you’ll have to.” Rick thought Gareth would snap and hurt her, possibly try to kill her. If it was anyone else, I’d agree with him, but when it came to Brianna… things were different.
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about,” I told him. For once, this wasn’t me reassuring someone and telling them lies, telling them exactly what they wanted to hear. People were so easy to read like that, and that made them easy to fool. “Gareth is… smitten with her.”
“Just ‘cause he’s smitten don’t mean he won’t try to hurt her.”
“He won’t.” Though perhaps I should’ve added,unless she asks him to. If Brianna asked him to hurt her, I was certain he’d oblige. But as for killing her… I think he was past that point. I think we all were.
“We have a temporary truce right now,” Rick huffed, sounding irritated about it. “I won’t bore you with the details, but… he knows about you and Brianna.”
Sighing, I said, “I suspected as much.” A moment passed, then another. It was a short while before I told him, “Okay.” My hand reached for the door handle, and I was seconds from getting out when he stopped me.
“Okay?” Rick echoed as his eyebrows furrowed. “After everything I said, that’s all you have to say?Okay?”
“Is there something in particular you want me to say, Rick?”
“I—no, I guess not. I just thought, I don’t know, you’d have more to say. That you’d try to convince me how wrong it is, how I always let my obsessions get the better of me, blah, blah, blah. That sort of thing.”
“Everything about it is wrong. Brianna being here is wrong. Me claiming that I brought her here for Gareth is wrong.” I looked at him, my voice lowering to a whisper, “I didn’t choose her for Gareth.”
Rick understood. “You picked her for yourself.”
