Chapter 9 - The Missing Memory
State police put us in a secure hotel for the night.
I couldn't sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, rain came back.
A porch light.
Lily shouting.
Owen's hand.
Clara found me sitting on the bathroom floor at three in the morning.
"You remembered something."
"Pieces."
She sat across from me.
I wanted to hate her. It would have been easier.
"Tell me exactly what happened that night."
She took a long breath.
"Lily came to my dorm first. She had copied pages from Harold's ledger. She told me Peter Wynn was dead because of it. She wanted me to bring you to the bus station."
"And you called my father."
Clara looked down.
"I called your house because I was scared. Harold answered. He told me Lily was having a breakdown. I believed him for maybe ten minutes. Then I saw Owen grab her."
My head began to pound.
A memory sharpened.
I was outside in the rain.
Lily screamed, "Will, run!"
I rushed Owen.
Something struck my skull.
I fell.
Then Clara was kneeling beside me, yelling at my father.
"You said you wouldn't hurt him!"
I looked at her now.
"You tried to help me."
"Too late."
"But you did."
"And then I stayed quiet for eighteen years."
Neither truth erased the other.
The next morning, Lena Ortiz brought news.
Owen and Mercer had vanished.
Cal Brooks had been suspended after investigators found encrypted messages between him and Graystone.
Then Lena placed a printed email on the table.
It had arrived from an untraceable account addressed to me.
William,
Bring Lily to the lake house tomorrow at noon. Come alone if you want Eva to remain untouched by this.
At the bottom was a photograph taken less than an hour earlier.
Eva walking into her aunt's house.
Someone had been close enough to photograph my daughter.
I stood so fast the chair fell over.
Lena said, "We can use this."
Lily shook her head.
"No. He wants William angry. That's when Dad controls him best."
May you like
I looked at my sister.
"Then this time, we control him."
