by Naomi Niles
“What if he arrests me the moment I walk into his house?” Victor asked.
“Then we will take our case to court,” I said. “And you will plead not guilty and we will fight like hell to make sure you go free…”
“What makes you think they will even believe me?” Victor asked, in a small voice. “Kameron and I have a long history together. What if they think I’m just a disgruntled employee who wanted a bigger cut? They’re not going to trust me once they know I’m a drug dealer.”
“Peter said he would testify for you,” I reminded him. “I will, too.”
“You’re my sister,” Victor pointed out. “And Peter’s sleeping with you. What makes you think a jury is going to trust either one of you?”
“We’re going to fight like hell to make sure you don’t end up in jail, Victor,” I said.
I saw his face go pale. Pity spread through my body, and I desperately wanted to reach out and hug him. He looked so much younger, sitting hunched in the passenger’s seat as though he were scared of the world. Sometimes it was hard to believe that he was the older sibling.
“Victor,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as possible. “Don’t overthink it, okay? Not yet. We don’t know what happened after we left, and Peter is a good man. I don’t think he would have turned you in.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because… I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Just because.”
“If he considers covering up what I did, it’s because he cares about you that much,” Victor said. “But the fact still remains, he doesn’t care about me. Why should he go out of his way to help me, especially considering he’s a police officer who, by all accounts, has always followed the law?”
“By all accounts?” I repeated, raising an eyebrow at him.
“I did my research, Madison. After he beat the crap out of me and I was forced to leave your place with my tail between my legs, I looked him up. Peter Burbank – the guy who threw his own brother in jail.”
My hands tightened around the steering wheel. I had almost forgotten about that. “Talen,” I said, under my breath.
“What?”
“Talen was his brother,” I explained.
“The one he threw into jail?”
“That was different,” I said, coming to Peter’s defense.
“How?”
“Talen didn’t murder anyone.” Victor cringed at my words. “He was caught in possession of drugs, and Peter knew that the only way to get him out of that gang was to single him out and cut him off from them completely.”
“Did it work?”
“I think so,” I nodded. “Talen went to jail for a short time, but he was released. And I do believe he’s turned his life around. I met last night, before…everything happened. He’s a little rough around the edges, but he and Peter actually seem to get along…considering.”
“Okay, and given what happened between Peter and his own brother, don’t you think Peter might feel that the best thing for me is jail?”
I fell silent. His logic was sound, and it did seem like something that would make sense to Peter. In all honesty, it had made sense to me until my brother was the one in the line of fire.
“I trust Peter,” I said, but it sounded as though I was trying to convince myself.
Victor sighed deeply. “I don’t know; maybe it’ll be a good thing. Maybe I’ll finally learn to be a man while I’m in there.”
“We don’t know that you’re going anywhere yet, Victor,” I said quickly. “Stop being premature about things.”
“It’s good to be prepared,” he said, in a soft voice.
“Don’t-”
“I want you to know something,” he said, cutting my off, as we got closer and closer to Peter’s house.
“What?” I asked, feeling my nerves ratchet up a notch.
“I wasn’t lying last night when I said I didn’t regret killing Kameron,” he said. “He would have made your life miserable – and Peter’s, too. He probably would have killed you both that night. I did what I had to do.”
“I know that,” I said softly.
“And I also want you to know one more thing,” she said.
“Okay?”
“Whichever way this goes, I’m going to turn my life around somehow. Whether I end up in jail or I walk free, I’m going to change for the better. I’m going to make better decisions and I’m going to be the brother I should have been from the start.”
“You promise?” I said, suppressing the tears in my eyes.
“I swear to you,” Victor said, with conviction in his voice.
We turned up the road, and I pulled to a stop outside Peter’s house. There was no sign of anyone else around. Only Peter’s car was parked outside. I felt my heart beat faster, not knowing whether that was a good sign or a bad one.
“Come on,” I said, once we had sat in the car for a full five minutes without saying a word.
We walked up the porch, and I knocked the door with a shaking fist. Almost immediately, the door swung open and I found myself face to face with Peter. His expression was calm and smooth, but there was no smile there.
“Come on,” he said urgently.
We walked into the living room and stood there awkwardly. I could feel Victor slink closer to me, and I knew he were scared of what was coming next.
“Sit down,” Peter said.
Both Victor and I sank to the couch in a daze, without really thinking about our actions. Peter stayed standing. He was quiet for a minute and then he started talking.
“What happened last night, I’m not going to lie…it was huge,” Peter started, and I felt my heart sink. “And as a police officer, it’s not something I can easily overlook. I thought a lot about this last night after you left. I wondered what the best decision I could make would be. I wondered what decision I could live with. And I came to the realization that as a cop, I couldn’t and shouldn’t let it go.”
I felt Victor tense beside me.
“But as a brother, I knew I had to,” Peter sighed. Then he turned to Victor. “If you were one of my brothers, Victor, I would have looked the other way. I went to the station last night and filed a report. The report states that you and Madison were out of town, and I heard a noise coming from the house.
“I went to investigate and came face to face with someone I thought was a burglar. He pulled a gun out on me, and I was forced to shoot him before he shot me. That is the official story.”
The news hit me like a ton of bricks, and I jumped off of the sofa and barreled into Peter’s arms. Relief flooded through my body, and I felt a thousand times lighter. I clung to Peter, who held me, rubbing my back in soothing circular motions.
When I finally pulled my face away from his neck, I kept my hands firmly wrapped around his torso, refusing to let him. I glanced over at Victor, who had his head in his hands. He was breathing deeply and his body shook ever so slightly.
A million different questions barreled through my head and I sobered immediately. “You’re taking the blame for this?”
“Something I was only able to do because of where Kameron was shot,” Peter said. “He was shot in the chest, not the back.”
I wrinkled my brows. That night had become a nightmarish blue to me. “But Victor shot him from the back?”
Peter shook his head. “Victor called out his name remember? Kameron turned and then Victor shot him. In the chest.”
“So…”
“I claimed I was the shooter and I was acting in self defense,” Peter replied. “You were right. If Victor had been the shooter, too many questions would have been asked. There’s too much history between Victor and Kameron to hide. And even if he had been absolved of the murder, he might have been brought up on charges of drug dealing. This was the only way to keep Victor out of it.”
“Oh God…”
“We need to go to the police station,” Peter said. “You and I.”
“Right now?”
<
br /> “Right now,” he nodded. “They’re going to question you. They’re going to ask you if you can identify the burglar.”
I looked at him in alarm. “What should I say?”
“The truth,” he replied calmly. “Tell the police that Kameron was your ex-boyfriend. He was abusive. You left home to get away from him. But he called you. He threatened you-“
I gasped. “I think I have a message on my phone from Kameron, right after I left him and came here. He threatened to make me suffer when he found me.”
“Perfect,” Peter said. “Show it to them. Tell them you were scared for your life. And above all, act surprised when you see his body. You’re going to have to be convincing. As far as everyone else is concerned, I have no idea who he is.”
I nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good,” he nodded. “The police will decide that Kameron was here to harm you. Why else would he have had a gun? Except that you weren’t at home. I interceded and when he pulled the gun out on me, I shot him first. With a little luck, this case will be closed soon.”
I breathed a tiny sigh of relief and turned to Victor. He was looking at both Peter and I, and his eyes were wet with tears of gratitude.
“Thank you,” he said, looking at Peter. “I don’t know how I can thank you for this.”
“There is one way to thank me, but it’s also a condition of my helping you,” Peter said. “Turn your life around. Make better decisions and find an honest way of making money. If I hear from anyone that you’ve been dealing in drugs again, or keeping company with anyone who’s involved with drugs, then I will find you. And I will drag your ass to jail myself. And I’m completely serious about that. You understand?”
Victor held Peter’s gaze for a moment and then nodded. “Completely.”
“Good,” Peter said.
I sighed deeply, clinging onto to Peter as though he were my lifeline. And in this particular instance, I genuinely felt that he was – my savior, my lifeline and my hero.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Peter
As I stepped onto my porch, I turned and noticed the lights on in Madison’s house. I could see her silhouette in the window of her living room. I just stood there a moment, admiring the beautiful contours of her body before I walked back into my empty home. I sat down on the sofa in the darkness and contemplated my decision.
Our visit to the station and gone better than I had hoped. Madison had identified Kameron from pictures straight from the coroner’s office. She had given the police her official statement, including the message Kameron had left on her phone. The Chief questioned her himself, but I could tell from his manner and his expression that he wasn’t suspicious. This would be an open and shut case.
Now that everything had been settled, I had the time to sit and reflect, to ponder if I had done the right thing or if I had made a mistake I would come to regret.
Nothing was ever as simple as it seemed. Sometimes a decision could be both good and bad in the same breath. Sometimes a decision was made up of a thousand different facets, each of which contained their own complexities.
Had my decision yesterday been the right one? The truth was that it probably wasn’t. Which is not to say that it had been the wrong one, either. It was just the decision I had made. The thought struck a memory and I felt one resurface immediately.
It was a few weeks after Mom had left us. No, it was a few weeks after we had realized that she wasn’t coming back. I realized that those weeks after her departure had fused together in a blur of emotion that didn’t hold any individual moments. That was partly my fault, however. I had spent a lot of time trying to suppress those memories. But now, after years of avoiding thinking about them, something niggled at the back of my mind and forced me to remember.
Dad was sitting outside in the garden. He was playing with Talen and Sam, both of whom were trying hard to make him smile. I could hardly watch them out there. It was too painful and much too sad. I could see the effort of trying etched across Dad’s face. It was obvious he was trying to put on a brave face when all he wanted to do was break down.
I turned from the window and went upstairs, hoping to find solace in my bedroom. John was out, so I would have the space to myself, for at least a few hours.
I was just passing Dad’s room when I noticed the door was slightly ajar. It was never usually open, but even when it was, it was an unspoken rule that we respected our parents’ privacy. It was different now, though. We didn’t have parents anymore. We had a parent…and he was broken.
I don’t know what made me do it, simple curiosity, or a thirst for answers or just the urge to do something, even if it wouldn’t make a difference. I pushed open the door and stepped inside the room.
I hadn’t been in there in years, not since I grew up enough to want to avoid the room. It smelt musty, cold and sad. It didn’t exactly smell like her, but it had the remnants of her in it. There were signs that she had been there and it was all the more heartbreaking because I knew my father had done his best to preserve those signs.
Her hairbrush was still on the dressing table, with strands of her dark-brown hair running through it. An old nightgown that she had worn when we were children lay draped over the chair in front of the dressing table. Her worn out slippers that John had bought her five summers ago were kept by her bedside as though she would come back at any moment and have use for them.
They were old things, things she no longer used anymore. That was the only reason they had been left behind. And I hated seeing them all there, preserved as though she deserved to have her memory saved. I wanted to gather them all up in my hands and fling them out the window. I wanted to burn them and in burning them, burn her hold over me and everyone else in this house.
My fingers twitched; my eyes fell on each item and my need surged furiously through my body. I felt the hurt, betrayal, and anger of her abandonment all over again, and suddenly, I wanted to be out of the oppressive heat of the room. But still, I stayed. I walked over to the dressing table and opened the drawers, as though trying to find something that could give me the answers I needed.
I had put on a brave face those past weeks. I had acted as though I knew she would leave us at some point. I had acted as though her leaving had barely touched me.
But in truth, it hurt more every day. I had heard someone use the word closure a few days before. I had been picking up Talen from kindergarten and heard some of the other mothers talking.
They hadn’t seen me turn the corner, but I had heard enough of their conversation to know they were taking about us, our family.
“No, of course they’re not all right. Five boys and she just vanished without a trace…it’s very sad. They won’t have any closure…”
“You’re quite right, and without closure, how can any of them move on?”
How could we move on? I wasn’t entirely sure what closure meant, but the word had a nice round sound to it. It made sense that I would require it.
The dressing table drawers were empty. I moved to the window where I could still see Dad sitting outside with Talen and Sam. The boys were running relays now with Dad as the judge. He gave them both a half-hearted thumbs-up and then his body hunched over again.
I turned away from the sight and walked over to the bedside table drawers. Mom’s side was empty, but when I opened Dad’s bedside drawer, I found myself staring at a neat little envelope with his name written on the front. It was written in Mom’s familiar hand.
I reached for it without thinking, and before I knew it, the letter was out of its envelope and in my hands. She had written him a letter before she left, that was clear to me the instant I held it. She had written him a goodbye and possibly even an explanation.
My fingers shook – this letter could hold all the answers. Maybe after reading it, I wouldn’t hate her so much, maybe I would even understand. Hope was a difficult thing to suppress when it came upon you suddenly. Especially when you were looking for reasons to beli
eve again.
I opened the letter. It was obvious from the creased lines of its folds that it had been opened and read many times over. I was fairly certain Dad read it each night before he went to sleep. I started reading with my heart in my throat.
My Dear John,
I would like to start off by saying that I am sorry. I know it might not seem that way to you. You might even think that my departure was calculated and deliberate, but there is more to this than you know.
You have been a good man and a good husband to me. You have always treated me with respect and kindness, and for that, I will be eternally grateful. I know the years have not always been kind to us, but you have never given up. A lesser man would have.
I have a great favor to ask of you. I know I have no right to ask anything from you anymore, but in my selfishness, I must at least make the request. I was too much of a coward to have this conversation with you in person, but faced with pen and paper, it’s a little easier to get the words out. I want you to explain something to the boys for me. And perhaps in explaining to them, you will also understand.
Sometimes in life, choices have to be made. Some choices require the sacrifice of a person’s morals and values, some require the sacrifice of more physical things, but if you know in your heart that it is the right thing to do, then sometimes you have to accept the choice, even if it is the tougher one. You have to accept it for yourself and the people you love most. You have to accept it so that your conscience can rest easy.
When people look back at the choice you made, some will condemn you and curse your name, but you have to stay the course. You have to stay true to yourself and your conscience. I hope you understand that that is what I am doing, John.
I have to do what I think is right, even if it means leaving. I know what it will look like to the world, but that is beyond me. Decisions are never easy to make, but when you come to the right one, you can never turn away from it. You must never turn away from it.
I love my boys, John. You must believe that. But if you don’t, I would not blame you. I would only say this. Look after them, as I was never truly able to. Protect them and love them and be the parent and the person that I could not be for them. I trust you more than anyone else on this planet. And, I will always love you for it.
