Chapter 6
Julian tried to make a deal.
Detective Hill told me in the safe house living room while Nora sat beside me and Emma colored at the coffee table.
“He wants reduced charges for cooperation.”
I laughed.
It sounded nothing like laughter.
“He kept my wife under the floor for three years.”
“I know.”
“He threatened my daughter.”
“I know.”
“He may have helped kill my father.”
Detective Hill’s face stayed calm, but her eyes sharpened.
“That is one of the reasons we are listening.”
Nora’s hand tightened around mine.
“What does he want?”
“To speak with Caleb.”
“No,” Nora said immediately.
I looked at her.
Her face had gone white.
“No,” she repeated. “He will twist everything. He will make you feel guilty. That’s what he does.”
She was right.
Julian had spent my entire life turning himself into the injured party.
When we were children, he broke my toys and told my father I made him angry.
When we were teenagers, he crashed my car and cried that I made him feel invisible.
When Nora vanished, he comforted me with one hand and buried me with the other.
“I’ll meet him,” I said.
Nora pulled away.
“Caleb.”
“With lawyers. With police. Recorded.”
Her eyes filled.
“Why?”
“Because if he knows what happened to Dad, I need to hear it.”
She looked at Emma.
Then back at me.
“Don’t let him take you back.”
That sentence stayed with me all the way to the jail.
Julian looked thinner behind glass.
Not weak.
Just reduced.
Like a rich man forced to sit in a cheap chair.
He smiled when he saw me.
“Little brother.”
I sat down and picked up the phone.
“Say what you asked me here to hear.”
His smile faded.
“No hello?”
“No.”
“You used to have manners.”
“You used to have a soul.”
His eyes hardened.
“There he is.”
I said nothing.
He leaned closer.
“I didn’t kill Dad.”
“Did you trap Nora?”
He looked away.
“Things got out of hand.”
I almost stood.
Detective Hill, behind me, placed a hand on my shoulder.
Julian saw and smirked.
“She’s got you trained.”
I breathed slowly.
“You have five seconds.”
He sighed.
“Dad was dying anyway. Voss wanted the ledger. I wanted what Dad owed me.”
“What did Dad owe you?”
“The house. The company. Respect. Everything he handed you because you were the good son.”
I stared at him.
“You trapped my wife because you were jealous?”
His face twisted.
“You think it was about jealousy? You got everything. Even when you didn’t want it. Dad trusted you. Nora loved you. Emma looked at you like you hung the moon.”
“She was my daughter.”
“She was supposed to be mine too.”
My stomach turned.
“What?”
Julian’s eyes glittered.
“I was there every day after Nora disappeared. I picked her up from school. I made her breakfast. I told her stories.”
“You lied to her.”
“I raised her while you wandered around chasing ghosts.”
I gripped the phone.
“You made the ghost.”
He leaned back.
For the first time, something like shame crossed his face.
Then it curdled into anger.
“Voss killed Dad,” he said.
The room went still.
“He switched the medication. Made it look like heart failure. I didn’t know until after.”
“Prove it.”
“I can.”
“How?”
Julian smiled.
“Deal first.”
Detective Hill stepped forward and ended the meeting.
But the damage was done.
My father had been murdered.
My brother had known.
Maybe not before.
Maybe not enough to stop it.
Enough to use it.
When I returned to the safe house, Nora was waiting by the window.
I told her everything.
She listened with her arms wrapped around herself.
When I finished, she whispered, “He wanted Emma?”
“Not like that. He wanted a family that wasn’t his.”
“That is worse.”
I nodded.
Emma ran in a moment later.
“Daddy!”
I picked her up and held her too tightly.
She laughed.
“You’re squishing me.”
“Sorry.”
But I did not put her down.
That night, Nora stood in the doorway of the bedroom.
“Can you stay?” she asked.
I looked up.
“Here?”
“I don’t want to wake up alone.”
I lay beside her fully clothed, above the blanket, careful to leave space.
In the dark, she reached for my hand.
“Do you hate me for signing things?”
I turned toward her.
“No.”
“Do you pity me?”
“No.”
“What do you feel?”
I looked at her shadowed face.
“Grateful you survived. Furious you had to. Terrified I won’t know how to help. Still in love with you.”
She cried silently.
May you like
I did too.
Between us, after three stolen years, our hands stayed joined until morning.
