He remained frozen in place for a long, tense moment. “Fine,” he finally said, lifting his jaw, staring defiantly at them all. “Yes. I hooked up with Bethany a few times over the last year or so.”
Bethany moved back over to her seat, sinking into it, keeping her gaze firmly away from Robert, who remained standing. Her face showed no signs of emotion now, just flat emptiness.
Maggie wanted to ask him how he could do that to their grandfather, but she didn’t know how to say it and not let all the boiling anger spill out. She struggled with controlling her flyaway emotions, drawing in several slow breaths to calm her racing pulse. This was all so crazy. And complicated. Was anything in life ever going to be easy again?
A glance at the concern on Andrew’s face made her heart pull. She tried to muster a comforting smile but it wouldn’t come to her face.
“Robert, sit down so we can talk,” Maggie finally said to him. “Because we need to clear the air, now.”
He seemed to sense her seriousness because he didn’t argue, merely slumped back into the chair. “What about?”
“I have to know the truth,” she said. Her pulse still roared in her ears, despite her efforts to remain calm, and she made herself speak as steadily as she could. “What do you really know about Cassandra’s disappearance? Is this why you’re gambling and drinking so much—to run away from whatever it is you saw? Please, talk to me,” she begged. “For once, talk to me.”
Robert just stared at her for a long, tense moment. No one spoke or moved.
Finally he cleared his throat and ran a hand across the back of his neck. His face flushed a deeper red, and he sighed. “I’m so tired,” he said, weariness heavy in his voice. He stood and stared out the massive window, at the darkness spread out across their parents’ front lawn. His shoulders were hunched over, his forehead pressed against the glass. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this. The inheritance, Joel’s death . . . I just can’t escape it all no matter how hard I try. I don’t know how to keep running from my demons.”
Maggie leaned slightly forward, keeping her attention on Robert. Something big was about to happen; the sensation of importance crackled in the air.
No one else spoke for a full minute. Andrew looked at Bethany, then turned his attention back to Robert, his face unreadable.
“I drink because it makes everything quiet. For a little while, I can forget.” He gave a deep, sorrowful exhalation of breath, locking his hands behind his back as he leaned back but continued to peer out the window. “Gambling too. That high . . . it’s addictive. But it also gets me into trouble.” His sudden laugh was mirthless. “And of course, that means your dumb-ass loser brother needs yet another bailout. I’m sure you heard Mom and Dad bitch all about it.”
Maggie wasn’t sure if she should talk or not. She debated for a moment and opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Robert kept speaking.
“You know, this inheritance . . . it dredged everything up that we all thought was long buried. That we’d pushed aside for years and never talked about. But despite Grandpa’s effort, no one’s ever going to find Cassandra,” he finished in a quiet, eerie tone, and the light whisper sent chills across Maggie’s skin.
“What do you mean?” she forced herself to ask. Her throat closed up. Oh God, what exactly did he know? What was he saying here?
Bethany’s brows furrowed as she blinked, her lips thinning.
“That night . . .” Robert paused, raised a hand up to trace random shapes along the window pane. “It was one hell of a party. The best I’d been to. Booze flowing, drugs passed around like candy. Girls were lookin’ hot, wanting to dance and flirt and be wild with us. Cassandra was having fun too. She’d had a few beers and was dancing around, laughing a lot.” He paused, sucked in a deep breath. “Joel and Scott, they were hanging out with me. We got a little jacked up. Well, a lot jacked up. I don’t even remember what we were taking, actually. But it was some strong shit.”
Maggie peeked a small glance at Andrew. He shook his head with a frown, indicating nonverbally that this had occurred after he’d left.
“Joel gave Cassandra a huge beer, then another huge beer, and at some point that night she ended up passing out on the ground, in the corner of the barn.” He pressed his palm against the window then curled his fingers tight. “I was barely awake myself, fighting off a blackout, but I saw . . .” He scrubbed a hand across his face, his back tightening, his voice shaky. “I saw Joel having sex with her. While she was unconscious. I tried to get up, to move, but I couldn’t. It was like my arms and legs were made of lead.” Regret and shame poured from his voice.
Oh God. Had Joel planned to tell her this during their meeting—was that what he’d been so afraid to mention? Anger swelled in her belly. Having sex with her unconscious sister? What the hell? She never would have imagined that would be his confession.
The curdling in her stomach intensified until she thought she would vomit. “But Joel wasn’t the only one, was he,” she whispered, remembering there were two DNA samples the police had found in Cassandra’s panties. A flash of intuition hit her. “Scott . . . he was the other guy.”
Robert nodded, and Maggie closed her eyes and bit back a sudden sob, clapping a hand over her mouth. And Scott had played it off like her sister had been having sex with strangers, when in truth, it was him and Joel the whole time. She was tempted to jump up, drive back to his house and beat the hell out of him for lying to her right to her face. Twice. No wonder he’d been so nervous when they’d talked.
So many horrible lies. How had this all happened, and why?
After this conversation was done, she was calling the police and telling them about the sexual assault against her sister. And she would not be quiet until justice was served.
Andrew stroked her back, remaining quiet, giving her space to calm down. She swallowed, nodded her thanks, drew the rampant emotions back in.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone what you saw?” she asked her brother. Even if he’d been unable to move, as he’d claimed, why not ask someone to help Cassandra, or tell the police the next day? They could have charged Joel and Robert with rape way back then, proven it through the DNA tests, and redoubled their efforts to find Cassandra by pressing the guys to be honest about what had happened.
Robert turned to face her, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. His face was ghastly white now, all traces of blood gone. “Because that’s not the end of the story.” His voice got hard. “Joel had slipped her something in that beer, which was why she’d passed out. Something I didn’t find out until later.”
Murderous rage slammed into Maggie’s body so hard she nearly saw spots. That asshole had roofied her sister, then raped her. And then Scott raped her too. Right now it was hard to remember why she’d felt bad about Joel dying—cold, but true. Because if he’d been alive, she would have killed him right now. She dug her nails into her palms and struggled to calm her breathing.
“Why didn’t you stop them?” she demanded. “Or tell the police? How could you let them do that to your sister!” She stood and swiped the tears coursing down her face. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
She stared at Robert, and something snapped in her heart. A huge chunk of her disconnected from this man who was her brother in blood only. How could he? How messed up was he that he’d kept this information silent for so long?
He’d walked around with these guys at school after the disappearance, pretending like nothing this horrific had happened, knowing that they’d violated his own sister. What kind of deviance did that take, to just put on a fake face and lie your way through life?
“I don’t even know what to say to you,” she continued, hot tears coursing down her cheeks. She’d never known this man at all, it seemed. All these years, and he was a complete stranger. Not a brother at all, but a betrayer.
Andrew stood behind her, to
uched her shoulder, but she shook him off. No, she was done with being calm. She donned her anger and sense of betrayal like a coat, let them warm her blood and stoke the fire in her belly.
“It’s easy for you to point fingers at me, but you weren’t there. I was too messed up to do anything! I couldn’t move, much less stop them!” Robert shouted. He blinked, fighting back his own tears. “Then I blacked out and when I woke up again—” The fight seemed to slip out of him because he dropped his head, covering his face with one hand. His shoulders shook. “God, I can’t forget it. I’ll never forget it, and it has haunted me every damn day since that night.”
Chapter 30
“What happened to Cassandra?” Maggie demanded of her brother. “What happened when you woke up? Stop covering up the truth and tell me! For once, do something that isn’t selfish. You owe it to your sister.”
Robert sank into his seat. His face was bleached like he was a corpse. Listless eyes met hers. “She was dead,” he said in a strangled whisper.
The air whooshed out of Maggie, and her knees buckled, her head growing dizzy. Bethany and Andrew ran over to help her to the couch.
Dead. Her sister was dead. The word wouldn’t stop running through her brain.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Bethany asked, a wobble in her voice. She cleared her throat and said louder, “Why did you let everyone think this whole time that she could still be alive? What is wrong with you?” She stood and slapped Robert across the face.
Maggie wanted to feel something, any kind of emotion right now, but everything was leeched out of her. She sat there on the couch, numb.
Andrew’s whole body was a tight coil beside her. He dug out his phone. “Robert, you have thirty seconds to explain everything, right now, before I call the police.” His voice was steady, calm, but there was a lethal edge Maggie had never heard before.
She pressed a clammy hand to her forehead and fixed her gaze on the carpet. What did she do now?
“Wait, wait. Joel and Scott had passed out too, like me,” Robert rushed to say, keeping his eyes locked on Andrew’s phone. “We all woke up while it was still dark outside.” A sob erupted from his chest, drawing Maggie’s attention to the misery his face.
He looked broken.
Good. He deserved to feel broken, and more. How could he keep this secret for so long? And how would she ever get over it?
“Go on,” Andrew said quietly. The phone was still in his hand, but resting on his lap. “Tell us everything.”
Robert drew in a slow breath through his nose. “After I’d passed out, I woke up first and realized I could move somewhat. So I went over to Cassandra, and she was . . .” His face crumpled. “She was dead. I think the drugs, beer and the roofies killed her. It wasn’t on purpose, not a murder—it was a horrible mix of everything. But I was still torn up, of course. I held her, and she was so . . . cold in my arms—” His voice broke, and he hid his face in his hands.
Oh God, she was not going to feel one ounce of sympathy for her lying brother. Not after he’d let this farce go on for this long. But she couldn’t imagine being the one to discover her sister’s body. That had to be impossibly difficult.
How was she going to tell their parents?
“Where is she?” she managed to ask him. “Where is my sister now?” Obviously they hadn’t left her in the barn.
“I tried to wake her up,” he continued, “even though she wasn’t moving or breathing, but she wouldn’t wake up. She was staring straight up at the roof, her eyes washed over with this strange pale sheen, and I didn’t know what to do. Joel and Scott must have heard me crying, because they came over and started freaking out too. They told me that it was a horrible accident.” He gave a bitter laugh. “And then they told me we had to take care of it.”
“Oh God,” Bethany whispered in a shaky voice.
“What do you mean, take care of it?” Andrew asked. Maggie could feel the tension in his body coiling even more, matching her own physical stress. She was trembling so badly she could barely draw in a steady breath.
Robert looked up, his eyes flat and lifeless. “Joel had told me he didn’t mean for her to die, that he was trying to help her relax,” he said slowly. “That she’d been flirting with him and giving him the signs all night, but he could tell she was too afraid to make the first move. He’d said he didn’t realize she was passed out when they were having sex—probably because he was so high on shit himself.
“I tried to take a swing at him right then, but I was still messed up. Scott stopped me and said we were all to blame here.” He sucked in a shaky breath.
Maggie stared at him, emotionally detached, just listening to his words. She didn’t know what to say, what to think. This was beyond anything she could have imagined.
Robert continued. “I told them I was going to call the police, but Scott said we’d all get in trouble—for the drugs, drinking, for her dying and us not helping her. For them having sex with her unconscious body. Rape that I watched without stopping. Then they teamed up and said if I called the cops, they would blame me for what happened to her. That they’d make it look like it my fault, like I wanted to watch and had even helped out. Two against one meant I’d take the fall and rot in jail.” He gave a disgusted laugh. “I was scared and stupid, and I panicked. The guys promised we’d take care of it together, and no one would ever know the truth—but I had to help them get rid of her. So we—” Pause. He cleared his throat. “We took Cassandra and wrapped her up and we drove out to Lake Eric while it was still dark—”
Maggie stood, her entire body still shivering. “Oh God, you didn’t.” She pressed a shaky hand to her mouth. Hot tears burned her eyes.
He nodded, misery all over his face. “Joel’s uncle had an old house on the lake. We . . . we used his boat, and we went out a few miles . . .”
He didn’t need to finish.
Cassandra was in the lake. Resting near Huntington Beach, her favorite hangout spot when she’d been alive.
She was dead. Dead and gone.
Maggie started to sob, shivers wracking her body. She wrapped her arms around herself.
Robert stared at her. “I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over.
Andrew moved to her side and slipped an arm around her back. With his other hand he began to dial.
“Sorry?” a screeching voice said from behind them. “You let my daughter die, you buried her out in the lake, and you’re sorry?”
Maggie spun around, staring into her mother’s crazed face in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. Tears flowed freely down her mother’s cheeks, and her eyes were blazing with rage. Her hands were behind her back and she kept her spine pressed to the doorjamb.
“Mom?” Robert choked out.
“No, Robert. You are not my son anymore. You don’t get to call me that,” she spat out. “All these years, and all these lies and lies and lies, and our family has been drowning in misery, wondering where my precious girl has been. And you knew! And you lied to us all!”
She brought her right hand out from behind her, aiming a dull gray gun at Robert’s chest. The other hand she waved in the air in front of her.
“You let those boys rape her, and you didn’t defend her,” she continued, her voice dark and wild. Maggie had never seen such loathing in her eyes before; it chilled her. “You let them drug her and kill her, and you did nothing. You buried her to protect your own skin. You buried my baby.”
Silence dropped like a bomb in the living room. No one moved or spoke. Her mom’s hand shook slightly as she kept all her focus on Robert. Her eyes were wild, streaked with red and unfocused.
“Mom,” Maggie whispered.
Andrew took a cautious step forward, holding out his hands. “Let’s all talk about this, Susan,” he said quietly.
“I don’t need to hear anything else.” She cocked the gun, c
upping the bottom with her free hand. “I’m done talking.”
Read more of THE INHERITANCE Part VI
THE TRUTH
Available from InterMix November 19, 2013
Olivia Mayfield has been an unabashed fan of romance since she was a teen, secretly devouring her mom’s Harlequins. She has a bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing, as well as a Master’s degree in English, and lives with her family in Ohio. In her free time she loves reading, shopping, wearing absurdly high-heeled boots, cheesecake, karaoke, and harassing her friends. Find her online at oliviamayfield.com.
The Inheritance Part V Page 5
