Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

Carlotta

W alking away from breakfast with William was a mistake. I knew it the second I left the room, but it was too late to go back so I went through to my studio. I wasn’t in the mood to paint, but I thought I might find some peace there, if nothing else.

I knew I couldn’t just sit here stewing, though. I hated the fact that William and I barely seemed able to say four words to each other these days without it turning into an argument. If we could just sit down and have a civil conversation, we might actually be able to get somewhere with this whole Candy drama, but we just couldn’t seem to do it. William just pushed my buttons, and I guess I pushed his too .

I wondered how much William had remembered from that night. Clearly, he hadn’t remembered all of it or he wouldn’t have been even half as calm as he was. But he had remembered that Candy had a knife that night. And he seemed to think I had done something with the knife.

I knew what the sensible thing to do here would be. I should call Detective Del Rey and just tell him everything, but I knew I couldn’t do that. As much as I wanted to, I just couldn’t. Too much time had passed by now. I didn’t know if he would even believe me after so long.

I had to do something, though. I couldn’t just sit here worrying about what might happen. If all of William’s memory came back, this whole thing could implode, and I could end up in deep shit.

William was right about one thing. If the cops knew about the knife, we would have been questioned about it. That’s when it hit me what I had to do. I had to find that knife. That would be my insurance policy that if things went bad, I wouldn’t necessarily have to go with them. I would find the knife and then make sure it was hidden somewhere the cops would never find it.

I stood up and crept back through the house and into the garden. I didn’t want William to know I was out here searching for the knife. I had played dumb enough about it that I didn’t think he would know I already knew about the knife.

I knew it had to be out in the garden somewhere if no one had found it, and I really didn’t think anyone had. Candy had been holding it when she plummeted out the window.

I started looking in the bushes beneath our bedroom window. If it had fallen from Candy’s hand as she fell, that was where it was most likely to be, and if it wasn’t, I would start widening my search in case it had rolled somewhere further away.

God, why hadn’t I just told the detective the truth the first chance I got? This had all spiraled out of control, and now I felt trapped. Locked in a lie, and my only hope of staying out of trouble now was to keep up the lie that I didn’t remember a thing that happened that night.

The knife wasn’t in or under any of the bushes that lined the wall beneath my window. That much was instantly clear to me. The bushes were flattened to the ground, and anything metallic would have stood out like a sore thumb. I moved back a little and began to widen my search area.

I was searching the next bedding area, one that wasn’t flattened, when I heard William clearing his throat behind me. Dammit. I had been caught. I stood up slowly and turned around to face him, my heart racing. I knew this made me look guilty.

“What are you doing?” William said, a cocky grin on his face. “Moving the evidence?”

“No,” I snapped, trying to sound casual like I wasn’t about to have some sort of mental breakdown. “You said there was a knife. If the cops didn’t find it, then it has to be out here somewhere, right? Unless, of course, your memories are skewed. And it just makes good sense to make sure that we’re the ones to find it, not the cops.”

“What makes you think the cops would be looking for it all of a sudden?” William asked, his eyebrow raised.

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “But I’d rather not risk their deciding to search the property again and finding a damned knife in our garden. Wouldn’t you?”

William shrugged, his cocky expression still in place.

“Maybe if I were you, I would feel that way,” he said.

“Wait,” I said, shocked at how casual he was being about all of this. It proved once again that his full memories definitely hadn’t come back. “Are you saying you would rather I just leave the knife out here wherever it happens to be?”

“What I’m saying is that maybe it’s time for you to just give this up and turn yourself in,” he replied.