“You stole your own blood?” Evan asked in disbelief.
“It had to look legitimate. My DNA had to be on that rock. I spilled the blood, made the anonymous call that I saw a jumper at the falls, then took a private off-the-books flight to Grand Cayman.”
The calm tone of his voice didn’t match the tension in his shoulders, his stiff jaw, and his wild eyes. He wasn’t as confident as he’d like us to believe. Underneath, he was a live wire.
“So why are you back now?” Evan asked.
“Now?” He gave a derisive laugh. “I’ve been back and forth several times. I even watched one of your games. I just had to make sure your dad wouldn’t be there. The two of us can’t be in the same place at the same time.”
Evan considered that for a moment. “Does my dad know you’re alive?”
“He didn’t at first,” Doyle said. “I tried my best to protect him. And I actually never planned on coming back. But there I was, sitting on top of a pile of money in the Caribbean, warmed by the sun, surrounded by the most beautiful blue water you’d ever seen . . . and I might as well have been in prison. I got homesick.”
He shook his head at the absurdity of it. “I wasn’t a free man. Not if I couldn’t come home now and then. Not if I couldn’t see my brother. Watch my niece and nephew grow up. If I stayed away, you’d forget me. So I came and went—private charters, using your father’s passport. I purchased a beautiful foreclosed home for a steal, under a shell corporation’s name. And I stayed there when I came to visit. But then . . .” He paused for a breath. “Then things started to get complicated. Your father figured out what I’d done.”
I stayed completely still, as if any movement would stop him from talking.
“What did he do?” Evan asked.
“He told me to stay away. He was nervous, scared that if the law found out I’d faked my death, they’d take him down with me. That was always his worry. Even growing up, Darren was always worried he’d catch the blame when I got into trouble. But he never did anything wrong. Not even at Stell. If he’d known about the deaths we caused, he’d have shut down production and reported it immediately. That’s why we’re a good team. We balance each other out. Darren does the right thing, and I do what needs to be done.”
Evan had said he thought his dad was hiding something. That he’d go through periods of unexplained anxiety. Now we knew he got nervous when his brother was in town.
But why was Doyle telling us everything now? Had he decided to come back from the dead? Make things right?
“Dad wasn’t the only one to find you,” Evan said.
Doyle’s face darkened, and I knew. This little speech wasn’t about contrition. Fear spread through my body.
“No.” He groaned and rubbed his cheeks. “The boy found me. He came right up to my house. I pretended to be Darren, of course, but he had all sorts of questions, and I knew he wasn’t going to give up.”
Evan’s voice cracked, “He was your son.”
“He was a mistake I made nearly two decades ago one night with a woman I didn’t even know,” Doyle spat. “That doesn’t make someone family. I offered him money, but the poor kid”—he stopped to let out a callous snort—“he didn’t want money. He wanted me.”
Doyle shook his head at the thought. “It was sad, really. He thought I’d turn myself in, face the charges, give up my money. That I’d go public and sacrifice everything to welcome some whore’s kid.”
“He was your blood!” Evan raged. He lashed out and grabbed Doyle’s sweatshirt in his fists. “My blood!”
Doyle broke out of Evan’s hold and shoved him back, sending a rock skittering over the edge of the falls. “You spoiled brat, can’t you see that I protected you? If I went public with the news that I’d faked my death, your family would be dragged through the mud again. Your father might be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal. You could lose your house, money for your future, your dad.”
“But James was my family and you killed him!” Evan roared.
Doyle held out his hands innocently, that cocky-calm look returning to his face. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Not yourself, no,” I said, finally gaining the courage to speak up. “You got Officer Reck to do it for you.”
His eyes flicked to mine in surprise. He looked almost impressed. “I told him to take care of the problem. How he got that done was his own choosing.”
“And Toni?” I shot back.
He shrugged. “Your little blond friend saw too much.”
“She saw you alive in your house,” I guessed.
“And then she accidentally fell out a second-story window onto the driveway.”
“You’re a psychopath!” Evan yelled, and the water behind him seemed to rage even louder.
Doyle considered this. “You know they say that three to five percent of all CEOs are psychopaths?” He waved his hand dismissively. “I’m driven. That’s the difference between your father and me. We’d never have made it as far as we did with his by-the-books thinking. I’m spontaneous. I’m the problem solver. I get things done.”
He returned his attention to me. “And I just have one last problem to get rid of. I’m really sorry that it’s come to this, Morgan, but . . .” A slow smile spread across his face. “It’s also kind of . . . karmic.”
Tension seeped into my muscles. “What did I ever do to you?”
“You don’t know?” He threw his head back and looked up at the sky. “Oh, that’s rich.”
“What?” Evan said. He reached out behind him, blindly searching for my hand.
Doyle pointed from Evan to me. “Look at you two. The Montagues and Capulets.” He sneered, “Noah Tulley, this girl’s father, is the reason for our family’s downfall. He ruined Stell. He destroyed the town.”
I shook my head quickly, not understanding.
“Stupid girl,” he snarled. “Your father is Employee X.”
My head started throbbing. Dad was the whistleblower? Was that the secret my parents whispered about at night? The thing they didn’t want me to know?
It was my father who’d set things in motion, and Flynn had found out. I remembered the line in his notebook that read like algebra: NT=X.
I imagined the struggle my dad went through after he found out people were dying because of Stell. The choice that lay before him. Speak up and ruin everything. Or stay silent and be complicit in the deaths of innocents.
I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Pride welled up inside of me.
I glared at Doyle. “You sent those notes to my parents. You tried to scare them.”
“What notes?” he asked.
“My parents did nothing wrong,” I insisted, anger edging my voice.
He took a lumbering step toward me, causing Evan to stiffen. “Your father should’ve waited. No one had to know. I was fixing things behind the scenes. The next batch of pills would have been better. The company would have survived. The town wouldn’t be rotting. So many lives have been destroyed because of your father.”
“No,” I said. “Because of you. What my father did was brave. He did the right thing. He saved lives.”
Evan put his body between me and his uncle. Evan was much younger and slightly bigger. All he had to do was stay away from the edge, wrestle Doyle to the ground, and I could call for help.
“You’re not going to touch her,” Evan said fiercely.
Disappointment dimmed his uncle’s eyes. “You’d choose her over your family?”
“I choose her over you.”
Raw fury contorted Doyle’s face and, quick as lightning, he struck out his fist and hit Evan straight in the jaw. Evan didn’t even have time to react. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.
A small cry escaped from my mouth.
“Just a little trick I learned,” Doyle said, glancing down at Evan’s body. “Crani
al nerve strike. Something they don’t teach the boys in baseball camp.”
The wind changed direction and spray misted my face. I blinked against the wetness, wiping at it with the back of my hand. Blood rushed loudly through my head, mixing with the roar of the falls.
Doyle’s attention shifted back to me. I looked up at his hulking frame and my legs turned to jelly. My mind searched for strategies, for any way out. As if reading my thoughts, Doyle said icily, “You can run, but I’m faster. You can fight, but I’m stronger.”
I put my hands up in front of me, as if that could ward him off. “There have been too many deaths. It’ll look suspicious.”
“There are only so many ways to make a death seem accidental, yes.” He advanced on me as he spoke. And with each step, I took one backward, closer to the ledge, to the churning, foaming water below. “There are cars, of course, but one more of those would seem . . . suspicious, you’re right. That’s why you, my dear, are going to kill yourself here.”
“No,” I said, my voice quivering. “They’d never believe it.”
He spoke in a monotone, like a news anchor explaining the nightly tragedy. “You got the idea when you took pictures for the paper last week. You’ve been so distraught over the death of your ex-boyfriend that you came here and . . . jumped. Officer Reck will tell everyone how obsessed you were. How you’d deluded yourself into thinking your boy toy was still alive. How depressed you were when you found out that he wasn’t. No one will question your death.” He smiled slowly. “They never questioned mine.”
I looked over at Evan on the ground, hoping to see some sign of life, but he lay still. “Evan won’t go along with your story.”
“By the time he wakes up, I’ll be gone. It’s time to revisit some of my favorite secluded international beaches. This particular trip to River’s End was more trouble than it was worth. If Darren wants to stay out of trouble, he’ll find a way to keep his boy quiet. If he can’t, I just won’t return. And good luck to anyone who tries to find me.”
He shrugged like it was no big deal. He was completely void of empathy. For his customers who’d died. For Flynn, Toni . . . or me.
The wind whipped up the back of my shirt as the falls roared behind me. I was at the edge. Nowhere else to go. I fell to my knees. The stupid girl in the horror movie, giving up, begging for her life. I put my hands up. “Please, Mr. Murphy. Please don’t.” Tears sprang to my eyes. Real tears.
But the giving up?
That part was an act.
Doyle reared up, ready to kick me over the side. I could see it, in my mind’s eye. Me falling backward, gliding through the air, wind whipping my hair over my face, the water swallowing me whole.
But as his foot neared my torso, I grabbed it in midair. I twisted his leg with all of my strength and rolled myself to the side, pressing my body to the ground. He tried to right himself, find a new balance, but the momentum he’d built up to kick me propelled his own body over the side.
He fell through the air, not gracefully, but clawing, screaming, clinging to life—until a jagged rock silenced him, and the water pulled him under.
I scrambled over to Evan on my hands and knees and pulled his head onto my lap.
“Evan?” I said, rubbing his cheek hard. “Wake up, Evan.”
His eyes fluttered open and for one last second they were Flynn’s eyes. Gray and mysterious. Skeptical and untrusting. Then his lids closed slowly, like a drawn window shade, only to snap open again.
“Are you okay?” he managed to push out.
“Yeah,” I breathed. “He’s . . . gone.”
I leaned over and covered his forehead, his nose, his eyes, his cheeks with kisses.
I wasn’t drawn to Evan because of any similarities to Flynn. Other than their looks, they were complete opposites. I understood now why Flynn never let me in. But his secretive nature had made me feel insecure. Evan made me feel . . . everything. Beautiful. Wanted. Worthy. Deserving of someone like him. And I realized, in an intense full-bodied rush, like a first breath after being underwater, that I loved him. I was in love for the first time in my life.
I opened my mouth to tell him, but he spoke first.
“I love you, Morgan.”
CHAPTER 29
Evan drove, one hand on the wheel, one hand holding mine.
I watched the town go by through the window. We passed the police station, with three media vans parked out front, and kept going toward our destination.
Several days had passed since Doyle Murphy went over the falls. This time, they found his body. We told the police everything Doyle had admitted at the falls. That, combined with some interesting bank deposit records, led to the arrest of Officer Reck. A media frenzy descended on the town. The story of the not-so-dead CEO was appearing on national nightly news programs. Word around town was that they were even writing a made-for-TV movie. River’s End would be famous.
Evan and I had pulled together the information he’d gotten in New Hampshire with what we learned from his uncle, and now we knew the whole truth. Everything I’d wanted to know about Flynn.
James/Flynn was born to a single mother. Doyle was his biological father, but he paid his one-night stand off in one lump sum. James and his mother lived a happy life in small-town New Hampshire until she died from cancer and he ended up in foster care at seventeen. Lonely and unhappy, he researched his father’s identity and learned that he, too, was dead. But Flynn came to River’s End anyway, in search of other relatives, maybe some real family. Instead he found his father, alive.
Doyle Murphy faked his death to avoid paying for his crime and spent most of his time hiding in the Caribbean, coming home now and then posing as his brother to relax in his abandoned mansion on the hill. Everything was working fine. Until Flynn found him and his secret was threatened. Doyle tried to keep Flynn pacified with money and promises. But all Flynn really wanted was the one thing Doyle was unwilling to be—a father.
When Flynn started to suspect that he might be in danger, he wrote the note to me in his notebook and mailed the photo to Evan. He didn’t want us to meet, to look into Flynn’s background, to risk our lives. He just wanted us to forget him.
But we couldn’t. And now I could grieve the real boy behind Flynn’s mask: the boy who only wanted a place to belong.
My phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out. A text from Mom.
Will you be home for dinner? I’m making lasagna.
I typed back:
sounds good. i’ll be there.
A moment later, another text came through.
Evan is welcome to come, too.
I smiled. Now that I knew the secret my parents had been hiding, things had changed at home. We were working on our communication and being more open with one another.
I didn’t blame my dad for his role as Employee X. It actually made me respect him more. Doing the right thing took a crazy amount of courage. What I was pissed about, though, was that they’d never told me, even after they’d started receiving threats. I know they only wanted to protect me, and that’s something that will never go away, even when I’m their age, blah blah blah. But still.
And they were, of course, furious that I’d never let them in on the whole Evan/Flynn thing. So there was a lot of trust rebuilding going on. Starting with them trusting my judgment, letting me date Evan, and judging him on his own merits and not his family history.
My parents still didn’t want people in town to know Dad was the whistleblower. Others might not be as understanding. Somehow, owning this secret together made us feel closer. Like we were a team.
Evan pulled the car into a parking spot. “I don’t want to let you go,” he said, squeezing my hand to prove his point.
We’d been inseparable since the day at the falls, seeing each other whenever we could and texting or talking on the phone when we were apart. I’d falle
n hard and fast, Toni-style. The irony was not lost on me.
I leaned forward and pressed my lips against Evan’s cheek, softly, then down his jawline, and finally on his mouth, which was eagerly awaiting mine. Then I pulled away and reached for the door handle.
He hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go in with you?”
“I’m sure,” I said. There was more than one thing I had to do. “See you soon.”
I left the warmth of Evan’s car for the sterility of the hospital. I nodded at the woman covering the nurse’s desk—I knew them all by name now—and approached Toni’s room. My footsteps echoed off the waxed floors as my pulse increased in speed. It didn’t feel real. It had all turned so fast.
Her mother’s cries carried out from the room. I peeked in the doorway. Toni’s body was obscured by her mother’s trembling, hunched-over frame. Her father stood one step away, a strong hand on his wife’s shoulder.
“It’ll be different now,” Mrs. Klane said between choked sobs. “I promise. No more fighting. No more drinking. We’re turning things around. Moving forward.”
“It’s about time,” I heard Toni’s voice say.
A huge smile broke out across my face. It was nice to see that she’d woken from her coma with her personality intact.
“Oh, good. Someone called you.” Cooper appeared at my side, and we stepped away from her door.
“Yeah, your dad called,” I said. “So she’s okay?”
“The doctors thought it was safe to bring her out of the coma. The brain swelling’s gone down. She still can’t come home for a while. But they think she’s going to be fine, yeah.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Great.”
Cooper’s face turned serious. “I’ve been wanting to thank you. For making Reece and I keep watch. For getting the guy who did this.”
“You know I’d do anything for her,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. But . . . I owe you. If there’s anything I can do to repay you, name it.”
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