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Will rolls his eyes, still struggling. “You really think it’s a coincidence we met right after that happened? Avery, our fathers were friends. They arranged for us to meet. Do you really think anything in your life happens by chance?”
This is too much for Nathan. He leaps forward, fist cocked. “That’s the last word you say about her or to her, understand?” Nathan’s face is a mask of pain and vengeance.
The front yard fills with shouts, and three cops pile onto Nathan and drag him away from Will. Nathan’s shouting, the police officers are shouting, and I’m standing here, silent in the middle of the whirlwind. I am a blank, empty space, a black hole floating in space. I watch on as Elliot violently corrals Will toward the nearest police car and shoves him in, making sure to smash his head against the car doorway on his way. Everyone is at top volume, but I can’t hear any of it. And even if I could, it wouldn’t matter.
Because here’s the thing.
All those weeks in that room, through all that torture, I thought the XO killer was taking everything from me. Every possible thing. I thought that when Rome and I got out there would be nothing, other than him, for me to lose. It turns out I did have something else to lose.
And Will Hewitt fucking stole it.
* * *
Back in the car, Nathan starts the engine, but makes no move to pull away from the curb. He just sits there and watches me silently.
“I would have gotten you a new phone if you’d asked me,” he says finally.
I don’t say anything. I’m still staring at the facade of Will’s house, still milling with several police officers who have stayed behind to finish executing the search warrant. Will is long gone, thrown into the back of a car in cuffs and taken down to the police station for booking. A cold sensation pools in my gut as I imagine him being strip-searched, interrogated, thrown into a cell until he can get a bail hearing. Ironically, I wonder if he’ll cross paths with Rome. What an interesting conversation that would be, one that would probably end up with someone dead. The terrifying thing is, I don’t care if Rome kills Will. In the state I’m in, I almost pray for it. Something vital has snapped inside me, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fix it.
I’m broken. Destroyed. The girl who woke up in the hospital isn’t the same girl who was at that engagement party. The old me is dead, and in her place, this shell of a human being is hobbling around, gaunt and pale, pretending I’m still her. The old Avery wasn’t vengeful. She wasn’t full of rage. She had no idea how fucking good she had it. She had no idea that she could have said no to all of it–the engagement, the future, everything. She could have withdrawn her hefty trust fund from the bank and run off to an island for the rest of her life. She could have been anything, done anything, demanded anything.
I miss the old me, but I hate her, too. She had no fucking spine, but the new Avery does. The new Avery has a spine, beautiful and strong, and it holds her wounded body together like armor. The new Avery is not meek. She is not merciful. She does not do what she’s told, and she definitely does not let her family decide who she fucking marries and breeds with.
“Avery,” Nathan says. “Did you hear me? I said I’d get you a new phone if you wanted one. All you had to do was ask.”
I look at him, the white-hot anger in my eyes obviously apparent; he shrinks back slightly, blinking several times.
“I don’t have to ask you for a phone,” I say. “I don’t have to ask you, or anyone, for anything. I’m Avery fucking Capulet. I can get what I want all by myself.”
Nathan lets out a breath, switching his attention to the road as he pulls the Range Rover away from Will’s front yard. “You’re Avery fucking Capulet,” he agrees. “Youdon’tneed to ask anyone for anything. I’m glad you finally figured that out.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
ELLIOT
“Not a damn thing.” Isobel drops a thick folder on the corner of my desk and drops into one of the chairs next to me. “That guy isn’t giving up anything.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to give up.” We’ve been interrogating Will for hours, and there is nothing—not a single fucking thing—to tie him to the kidnappings.
“He’s got airtight alibis for every single time the live video stream was happening.” Isobel rubs her temple and glares at the file on the desk. “I don’t know, Elliot. Maybe he’s just a pervert and a control freak and not a serial killer.”
“Maybe.” I plunk down a fresh coffee in front of her. “But we need to rule it out completely. If we miss something, we’re fucked.”
My office resembles the spoils of a shipwreck, if that ship were only carrying evidence bags and stale cups of half-drunk coffee. Isobel settles in on the other side of the desk, downs half her Americano in one go, and we start again.
This is the bullshit part of an investigation like this—looking three times at every piece of evidence, trying to get it to point somewhere. But once your mind has made a decision about a video or a footprint, it’s hard to switch that original interpretation off.
The sun sinks down, darkening the parking lot outside, and I get two more coffees for us. Then three. Then four. I’d go for five, but we’re already way over-caffeinated as it is.
Around nine, I resurface from reading through the interview files from after the party to find Isobel looking down at something intently, her brow furrowed. The hairs on my arms pull up. I know that look on her face. I know it.
“You got something?”
“I’ve got something weird. I don’t know what it means.”
She snaps it forward. It’s a newspaper. A bloody one.
“Is that the first one we were sent? Forensics has already analyzed it. Avery Capulet’s blood, Rome Montague’s fingerprints.”
