Chapter 21

DYLAN

“You have a visitor,”the guard says.

“I don’t want to see them.” I look back down to the book I’m reading. Crime and Punishment. Dostoyevsky seemed the only appropriate reading material.

The only people who’d want to visit me are Miranda, Darren, or the company lawyer. I’m not interested in seeing any of them.

There’s a reason I didn’t bother making a phone call to get bailed out. If there’s anywhere I belong even more than a seedy strip club, it’s gen pop at the Santa Clara County Jail.

“She said you’d say that,” the beefy guard says. “She also said to tell you her name is Chloe Lennox.”

My head shoots up and my book drops to the floor. “C-Chloe?”

“So you gonna see her?”

I nod and get to my feet.

But no, it can’t be my sister. Not after all these years.

How would she even know I was in jail? Me getting locked up can’t have made national headlines.

I’ve convinced myself it won’t be her by the time I’m led into the visiting area. It has to be Miranda just using Chloe’s name because she guesses I won’t see her if she used her own name. I have half a mind to turn around in the last hallway the guard leads me down, I’m so sure I’m right.

But what if…? It’s the tiniest doubt that keeps my feet moving forward. If there’s even the slimmest possibility it actually is my sister waiting for me out there, I owe it to her to show my face.

My breaths get shorter as the guard swipes his keycard and then types in a number on a keypad to unlock a large metal door. There is a row of private booths partitioned off with glass separating inmates from visitors.

I desperately search every face we pass as he leads me down the aisle. But it’s not until we get to the booth that’s the third from the end that I see her.

“Chloe,” I breathe out, hardly believing my eyes.

I tumble into the chair and then grab desperately for the phone. She already has hers up to her ear.

“Chloe. How are you— Why—” I have a thousand questions. A thousand things I want to say but now that she’s here in front of me, I’m struck speechless.

She’s so beautiful it hurts to look at her.

She has Mom’s heart-shaped face and her curly auburn hair looks lighter, like she’s been spending time in the sun.

And she looks somehow… I don’t know. Grown up. Like she’s a woman and not a girl.

But still so familiar it hurts. She still has a dusting of freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and her cheeks. She’s still the sister I teased all growing up. The sister I love more than anything in the world.

She smiles and lifts her hand to the glass, and tears glisten in her eyes.

“It’s so good to see you,” she says softly.

I lift my hand to meet hers and I blink hard, fighting back my own tears.

“I can’t stand not being able to hug you,” she says.

“I’ll pay bail. I’ll get out, okay?” I can’t get the words out fast enough. “Tell them I’ll pay bail. Right now. Go tell them right now.”

She nods and stands up, swiping at her eyes.

The whole process takes a couple of hours and I’m kicking myself for not asking Chloe at least a few more questions while I had her there. Jesus, I didn’t even ask her how she is. How she’s been all these years. If she’s okay.

She looked all right. Healthy, I mean. But maybe she was just putting on a front for my sake? Jesus, the first time she sees me in six years and I’m in fucking jail.

I only barely stop myself from snapping in impatience at the release officer who seems to be moving at a snail’s pace in processing my paperwork to get my belongings back to me. But finally, I’m back in my own clothes and being led to the waiting area for friends and family.

When the officer opens the door and lets me through, I see her again.

And not just Chloe.

Miranda is sitting with her, holding her hand as she waits.

Of course.

Of course it was Miranda. That stubborn woman. What did she do? Get on a plane right after I left her house to track Chloe down in Austin and let her know what a fuck up her big brother had become? I’ve only been in lock-up for a little over a day.

But I don’t even care, I’m so grateful to see my little sister.

I jog over to them and Chloe bounces to her feet. She throws her arms around my neck. I bury my face in her hair and hold her, lifting her up off the ground and swinging her back and forth.

“You’re here,” I breathe into her curly hair.

“I’m here,” she says back, laughing and crying at the same time.

I hold her for a long time and when I finally let her down, she takes my hand. Her smile is pained now. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.” Her gaze flickers over to Miranda.

“There’s a park not far from here. Why don’t I drive you there so the two of you can talk. In private.”

Chloe gives an appreciative nod, reaching out and squeezing Miranda’s hand.

There seems to be an understanding between the two of them. And seeing the woman I love and the sister I’ve always adored connecting like this? I can’t say it doesn’t affect me.

Jesus, I thought I’d accepted my fate to live out the rest of my life as a miserable, lonely fuck. But now here they are, the two lights of my life, and I don’t know— I don’t know anything anymore.

We walk out to the parking lot in silence, Chloe’s hand in mine. She squeezes every so often and looks up at me with a sunny smile.

The last two days have exhausted me and I feel scraped out on the inside. Empty of all the storming emotions that had me raging at the bar and screaming in my cell the first night.

That’s not true, though.

I have one emotion left and it’s so overwhelming I can’t stop the tears that spring to my eyes.

Gratitude.

Gratitude to be here with my sister. Gratitude to Miranda for making this happen. Gratitude I didn’t do something even stupider at the bar so I was able to get out of jail with nothing more than some money and paperwork. Gratitude to be fucking alive.

Chloe sits with me in the back seat while Miranda chauffeurs us the five minutes to a park. It’s a small green space with trees and a green lawn where some kids are playing soccer. There’s a little path through the trees that Chloe points out.

“I’ll wait for you here,” Miranda says, pulling an e-reader out of her purse.

I shoot her a grateful look and she just nods at me, her expression full of compassion and understanding. How can she? After how I treated her?

I turn away. Chloe takes my hand again as soon as we’re out of the car.

“How have you been?”

I feel stupid as soon as I ask the question. It’s so banal. Something a stranger might ask and it feels all wrong.

But Chloe just smiles up at me and squeezes my hand again. “Good. I’ve been good.” But then a cloud covers her features. “It was hard at first, I won’t lie. After everything that… happened. The first year especially.”

I cringe. “I’m so sorry I didn’t—”

She looks up at me. “It’s okay. Miranda explained.”

“She did?”

“You thought I blamed you?”

My breath catches and we walk several paces. “How could you not? I didn’t see— Didn’t realize what was happening even though I was—”

But she shakes her head. “Don’t you get it? He was the master manipulator. No one ever saw him for what he was.”

“But I did.” I stop walking and look down at her. “We all saw what he did to Mom. I don’t know why I never thought he’d do it to you, too. I just—”

But Chloe’s shaking her head violently. “I know what you thought but you were wrong. It wasn’t Dad.”

My blood freezes in my veins at her words. “What… what do you mean?”

Her features are tight with pain and her face is pale. “It was Darren, not Dad. For years, it was Darren who would come into my room at night and… and hurt me.”

Oh Jesus no.

All my equilibrium from the car is gone in an instant.

I stagger back into a tree and Chloe moves with me. Our hands separated when I moved so suddenly but she takes mine again.

“But I followed him,” I whisper. “That day I came in. I went through your bathroom and found Dad—”

Her face is still pained as she explains, “You found Dad in his home office. Which he put in Darren’s old room after he moved out and Dad had the heart attack. Dad always worked in his pajamas with those damn earphones on when he worked from home—remember how Darren gave them to all of us that Christmas, the noise cancelling kind? It was so Dad would never hear—”

She breaks off but I still don’t understand.

She’s quick to clarify. “Darren ran through the bathroom and was out the other door into the hallway before you ever got there. Dad had no idea about what was going on until he saw Darren run through the room. Then then you came in moments later screaming at him and beating him up.”

I shake my head. “But— But then why didn’t he say? Or fucking do something about it?”

Tears fall down her cheeks. “I think he might have threatened to once he connected the dots and realized what Darren had been doing.”

I just stare at her, confused.

“And I think Darren killed him for it. Poisoned him and made it look like a heart attack.”

I blink, horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me?” To have carried all of this, by herself, after all the trauma she’d already been through at my brother’s hands. She’d only been seventeen for God’s sake.

“I was terrified he would kill you, too.” She swipes at a tear. “So I never said. And then you two started the business together and I was so afraid. I was afraid all the time. I was so afraid of him, and you two were so close, I was afraid to contact you in case he found out and—”

“Oh God.” I pull her into my arms and crush her tight to my chest. “Fuck, I’m so sorry, Chloe. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t realize.”

She nods against my chest, crying, and I hold her. Jesus, all these years I had it wrong. I had it all so wrong. Chloe didn’t blame me. She’d been afraid. And she was protecting me. How had all of this ended up so backwards?

Darren.

Darren was how all this had happened.

Miranda was right.

Maybe I wasn’t a monster, and my father might be dead, but there’s one devil still left breathing.

I pull back from my sister and run my thumbs underneath her eyes to wipe away her tears. “Shh, shh, it’s all okay now. You never have to be afraid again. I swear it.”