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I spend the night in the cold, hard cell, wondering: Why, why, why? Why would someone frame me?
When the bright light of morning filters through the windows, I’m arraigned in Eugene, plead not guilty. I’m released on bail.
I head home, unlock the front door to my house, and go inside. My blood burns beneath the surface.
Why, why, why? Why would someone frame me?
I crouch to untie my hiking boots, giving myself a moment to think.
When the hell did someone break into my house and plant the drugs?
Was it while I was at work? While I was running on the hiking trail?
Or did they break into my house while I was sleeping?
The thud of footsteps on the porch interrupts my thoughts. My brothers. I’d called Garrett and Kellan when I left the court building in Eugene and asked them to meet me here. Troy was the one who drove to Eugene this morning with a change of clothes and brought me back to Maple Ridge.
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to set you up?” Kellan walks through the open door. He doesn’t bother to ask me how I’m doing. Not that I expect him to.
I stand. “I don’t have a list of enemies, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Apparently, you do.” Of my three younger brothers, Kellan is the only one who knows what it’s like to do time. But in his case, he did commit the crime. Computer expert turned stupid hacker.
Garrett and Troy enter the house. Like Kellan, they have the same dark hair and tall, Marine-honed body as me. The only difference between us is Garrett, Troy, and I have our parents’ brown eyes. Kellan’s blue eyes belong to his biological parents. The parents who abandoned him at a young age.
I toe off my boots, put them in the hall closet, and head for the living room.
I’m not a neat freak, but my house is usually tidy. Organized. This—how the police left it—is not.
Couch cushions are on the floor, cupboard doors wide open, wicker boxes dumped out, and surveyor’s maps for the Wakefields’ land scattered everywhere.
Why would someone frame me?
Tension coils in my muscles, ready to snap like a resistance band stretched one too many times.
“Damn. It looks like someone threw a wild party in here.” Troy walks over to the couch and picks a cushion off the floor.
“I’ve seen worse,” Kellan says.
None of us ask him if he’s referring to a mess from a party or the mess the police left at his house.
I stand there, not moving as my brothers straighten the room. It takes a minute for my legs to start working. I walk over to the bookshelf, to the picture frames lying facedown like a line of dominoes. The tension in my muscles tightens some more.
“Shit, who the hell framed you?” Troy grabs another cushion from the floor and tosses it on the couch. “Maybe it was someone you don’t think could have a grudge against you but clearly does.”
“What about the therapist you don’t see eye to eye with?” Garrett gathers the maps and returns them to the coffee table.
“You mean Richard Diegel?” I pick up one of the photos on the bookshelf. It’s a picture of Aiden and me right after our peewee hockey team won a playoff game. We were grinning at the camera, excited because we’d both scored goals.
But I’m not grinning now. Memories of that day plow through me like the blast of an explosion. Stealing my breath. Stalling my pulse.
Fuck, I miss him. I miss my best friend.
I wish he were here to talk through this shit show with me.
I inhale slowly like my therapist taught me to do back when I was struggling with PTSD—One. Two. Three—and put the picture upright on the shelf. I release a hard breath.
Troy puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry.” He nods at the photos and drops his hand away. “I know how important they are to you.”
