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He didn’t say impossible.
“I’m going to prove to you I didn’t do it. I’ll spend however long it takes to clear my name. They’re searching both my properties, and I can promise you, they won’t find anything because I. Didn’t. Do. It.”
Everything clicks. The meeting in the middle of nowhere, the not telling anyone that I’m meeting him, the confession. A headache threatens at the base of my neck, the tension knotting into a tight wad of what is happening?
“You’re a suspect.” It’s not a question, but he nods. “Would you ever have told me? If you weren’t a suspect?”
“Yes. I would have had to, eventually.”
What the hell does that mean? People who skirt the truth rarely tell it if they never get caught. What am I missing? “Why?”
He runs his hand through his hair again, pulling it at its ends. His dark eyebrows pull together. “There’s more…” He pauses and draws in a harsh breath. What more could there be? Isn’t this enough? “The accident…where your parents died.” My confusion grows tenfold. Where is he going with this, and what does this have to do with us? “My brother was in the other car.”
His words steal my breath. Our meeting wasn’t a coincidence. “You knew who I was?”
“I did,” he whispers. “But it’s not?—”
“Not what I think, Paxton? Do you know how cliché that sounds? I don’t know what to believe. You’ve been lying to me. About everything.” I sit down in the car, unable to move. “Why did you look for me? Because you felt sorry for the girl left behind because your brother killed her parents?”
His mouth falls open before he snaps it back. “Is that what everyone told you?” He throws his head back, looking up at the sky, and squeezes his hands into fists before finding my gaze again. “Kali, that’s not even what happened.”
Excuse me? I can’t get out of the car fast enough, the rage building. “That is what happened!” I storm over to him, getting in his face. “Your brother drank and drove that night. He took my parents away from me! He stole the only people on this earth who loved me unconditionally!” I scream.
“Kali.” His emotions get clogged in his throat as his voice breaks. “I’m sorry your parents were taken from you that night. I am. If there’s anything I wish, it’d be that night never happened. But it wasn’t my brother who was drunk.”
The earth shifts beneath me. “What are you saying?”
My mind jumps back to my eight-year-old self. The police coming to the babysitter’s house. CPS taking me that night to a home. They told me there was an accident. I overheard one saying that alcohol caused the accident. My parents didn’t drink. At least never around me. There wasn’t even alcohol in our house.
I shake my head, backing up. “No. You’re wrong.”
“Kali, wait.”
“No.” I hold up my hand to stop him from getting closer. “We’re done. I can’t do this. You are a liar!”
I slide into my car, slamming the door, needing to get as far away from him as possible. I cover my sobs with my hand as I drive away.
Everything I thought was a lie.
CHAPTER 27
Kali
I turn right instead of left when I hit the freeway.
There’s no plan, just questions leading me in the wrong direction.
A small sign, one that you’d miss if you blinked, reads Blackburn 10 miles. Ten miles to the city that took everything from me. I was supposed to see this city in my rearview mirror, never to visit again, as I waved around four million dollars. But here I am, being pulled in, searching for answers. How could I live my entire life believing a drunk driver killed my parents and no one ever told me the truth?
Because he’s wrong.
An hour passes, giving me time to calm down. But as soon as I hit Main Street, the hairs on my arms stand tall as I slow. The August heat, keeping everyone inside, makes it look as deserted as the place I just left. Even the town gossip crew’s bench outside Jack’s shop is empty, taking their daily meetups inside in the air conditioning. I come to a complete stop at the spot where I was taken. Given some kind of drug and tossed in the car like trash. I lean against the headrest, closing my eyes, letting my thoughts take me back to that night.
It was darker than normal. Didn’t even notice the car parked on the side of the road. Where I’m parked right now. I fight the haze in my memories. I must’ve seen the car. How did I pass it without glancing at it, though? I would’ve walked by it. Right before someone slid out of the shadows.
Right before my world went black.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
