She said something about a federal agent stopping by the house and letting her and my dad know there was new information on Rissa and her boyfriend’s murder. She told me the agent had been so nice, so handsome and polite. She told me that he thought she should be the one to call me because it was information the entire family needed to know. My mother hadn’t had that much life in her since my sister’s body went into the ground. Her words stabbed through me like broken and jagged shards of glass. She asked me to come home. I hadn’t been home to see her or my father in almost six years. Too much time and such a huge secret kept me from going back to them, and now Conner was manipulating the situation so I had no choice.
He wanted me to tell them what I had done. He knew that admitting to my parents my part in what had happened after Rissa’s death was my worst fear. He was using things I had told him, shared with him, when I thought I was in love, against me. He was pure evil and really tricky. It didn’t escape my notice that he was guiding me away from the security of the condo while both Titus and Booker were away. I wondered if he had yet to pick up on the marshals that were supposedly keeping an eye on me from the background or if he just didn’t care.
I promised my mom I would try and make it home soon. She cried, and when I hung up I knew without a doubt the phone would ring again. I don’t know how Conner got the number, but I was done questioning how he managed to always be a step ahead. Instead I needed to focus on luring him closer.
I would never understand how such a terrible man could have such a beautiful voice. It was without a doubt one of the greatest weapons he had in his arsenal. His accent just a shadow under his hard words as he said my name.
“Reeve. Pretty, pretty Reeve. It’s a shame it had to go this way. I had such big plans for you.”
I stared at the phone like it might bite me. His words coiled tight and threatening around my throat.
“Because you loved me, Conner? You had plans because you loved me?” I sounded bitter and scorned, and I kind of was. I hated that he had fooled me so badly. I hated that he had just brought more bad into my life when all I wanted was good. I hated that I was going to kill him, and this beautiful thing that was unfurling between me and Titus would wither and die.
“I love you about as much as you loved me, Reeve. One user can usually spot another from a mile away. I thought that’s what we were doing . . . using.”
I scoffed at him. “I thought we were starting a relationship. I thought you were something different.”
“That makes two of us. I thought you would understand why I’m doing what I have to do. I thought we spoke the same language of revenge, of doing what had to be done to right a wrong.”
I flinched at the word revenge and how powerful it could be in the wrong hands. I shoved my fingers through my long hair. “Why did you go to my parents’ house, Conner? What are you trying to do to them?”
He laughed, and it made my stomach turn over and over. I wrapped an arm around my waist and bent over. I felt like there was a good chance I might get sick.
“I’m giving them the truth. Don’t you think they deserve to know the role you played in bringing their daughter’s killer to justice? Don’t you think they should be proud of you, admire what you risked?” He laughed. “I’m helping you face your fears, my dear. Don’t you think it’s time you came clean, laid the burden down? You went back to the Point to end me but forgot just how many of your secrets still lived there. There are a lot of ways to make someone suffer, Reeve, and I think you should experience them all before we meet again.”
He wasn’t trying to do anything to my parents or for them. He was trying to do it to me. I’d left because things hadn’t felt right. I hadn’t felt right knowing what I had done and not feeling an ounce of guilt over the choice I had made. I couldn’t stay there and lie to my parents’ faces, so I left, and now he was forcing me to go back. He was going to blow up my family once again, using me and my past choices as the dynamite. I squeezed my eyes shut. He was right: there was more than one way to make someone suffer. I felt the pain well up inside of me.
“You expect me to tell them what I did. You want me tell them I went to Novak.”
“I don’t expect it, I know it. If you don’t do this, the next call will be from your new boyfriend because he’s on the way to their bodies. Do you understand me?”
“You’ll kill them anyway. It’s what you do.” And even though my parents and I weren’t really close, I still couldn’t let him do that to them. They were innocent in all of this, their only crime being that they were related to me. Their deaths would be my fault, and even though I was strong, the weight of more guilt and more bodies would cripple me.
“I haven’t killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.” That voice was so seductive, just begging me to believe him.
“Oh yeah? What about the girl on the docks? You want me to believe you didn’t have your hands in that? She looked just like me.”
He laughed a little bit. “She had your smart mouth as well. I might have taken a personal interest in her and gotten a little overzealous in trying to teach her what happens to pretty, mouthy girls. It’s time to go home, Reeve. Go alone. If the cop shows, it won’t end well for anyone.”
I whimpered a little bit. “He’s going to want to know where I’m at. He won’t just let me drop out of sight.” Titus was going to be pissed that I was leaving the condo in the first place. When he found out why, he was going to call me every kind of idiot for falling into one of Roark’s traps.