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“I’m sorry about what happened to your parents.”
No, not now.I can’t deal with this now.It was too late.Too much terror from the night had left her shaken.Too much adrenaline spiked her blood.
“Your father attacked your mother.”Sympathy slid beneath Oliver’s words.
Her stomach dropped.Seemed to just hit the floor.
“You were there.You and your brother.You tried to get him to stop, but your father was enraged.”
He’d been jealous because her mother had smiled at a stranger when they’d gone to the store.Jealous, then violently angry as soon as they’d all gotten home.“He was so mad all the time.”A change that had terrified her.Her once smiling, easy-going father had turned into a stranger.One who hurt her mother.And who wanted to hurt me.But they hadn’t known…couldn’t have known…
“The brain tumor wasn’t found until the autopsy.”Oliver’s voice was louder.Because he was closer.
She wanted to break and run to the guest room.To slam the door shut and hide.
But there was no hiding from her own past.
“The location and size of the tumor in your father’s brain—it led to his behavioral changes.The violent outbursts.The paranoia.He couldn’t control himself.And he wouldnothave stopped that last attack.”
The last attack.When he’d been hitting and hitting her mother.Lark could still hear her own voice, begging her father to stop.
Only he hadn’t.Not until—
“Your brother ran upstairs.He took the gun out of your father’s nightstand drawer.”Oliver’s voice came from right behind her now.“When he came back down the stairs, he shouted for your father to stop.”
Stop!Please, God, just stop!
“But your father was far past listening.Far past his normal sanity.And he’d stopped using his fist and was armed with a knife.”
Blood.Everywhere.
“Your mother was still alive.Barely.Your father whirled at your brother’s voice—”
You won’t shoot me!
“But you were standing there.Standing too close to your father because you’d been trying to reach your mother and help her.”
I can see the madness in his eyes.
“Your father lunged at you.He locked one hand around your throat even as the other raised the knife and—”
My father had my eyes.Same green color.But that madness…that rage...
“You broke from his grip.He swung the knife—”
Boom.
“Your brother shot him.Killed him with a bullet that went straight in your father’s heart.”
Her body trembled.She let go of the doorframe.“I’m really too tired to relive one of the worst moments of my life right now.”Her voice was hoarse.Rasping.
“Your brother saved your life.He became a hero to you.To everyone, at first.But then the truth of your father’s brain tumor reached the media.It reached your brother.And the guilt…The guilt must have been unbearable.He’d saved you.And killed the father he loved so much.If only the bullet had gone somewhere else.If only he’d missed your father’s heart.If only…”
She whirled.“You knownothingabout my brother or about me.”
A furrow appeared between his eyes.
“This is what you based your big profile on?That my brother feltguiltyfor saving me?”A bitter, disbelieving laugh slid from her.“So, what is he supposedly doing now?Murdering me over and over again because he wishes I had died instead of my father?”
