Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135696 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 543(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“What did she do?”
“She instigated a psychological campaign to turn Jeff against his family, one she succeeded in, I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, spectacularly.”
Well…
Shit.
“And what came of that?” Harry pressed.
“In the end, she lost it. Why? You’d have to ask her.”
“Lost it?” Harry kept at it.
“Jeff was here, sheriff. In Misted Pines. He was here when it happened. We had a long weekend off at school. I was going to drive Kennedy and her boyfriend to the lake for the weekend, because we had a party to go to in Seattle, but Mom and Jeff came out the day before.”
“No one mentioned that,” Harry noted.
“That would be because Lincoln forbade us to because Jeff shot my mom and dad and set fire to the stables.”
Harry sat back.
Everyone remained silent.
“Linc didn’t catch them,” Tru said the last two words with such deep sarcasm, it was like a physical thing in the room. “He was at the big house. He saw the fire and ran to the cabin, terrified out of his mind. When he got there, Sharon was there. And so was Jeff, holding the shotgun, covered with blood. First thing Linc did, though, was ask after Dad and Mom. Jeff said they were in the stable, so he tried to go in and get them, but the fire was raging. Then he tried to stop the fire. Jeff was bloody, but Dad didn’t know what that meant. If they were dead or not. He grabbed the hose, went after it. But there was no stopping it, not with a garden hose, so he just made sure it wouldn’t spread, especially to the cabin. Dad loved that place. We all had happy memories in that place.”
Cade gave Riggs a look, which Riggs returned.
And yeah.
Nadia was right.
Cade was good at this shit because he’d called into question the drenching of the area on the cabin side.
Tru sucked in a big breath, let it out and kept talking.
“Once he accomplished that, he had to deal with Sharon and Jeff. Dad never trusted her, but even if he didn’t figure it out right then, he had a great deal of time with not much else to occupy his mind to figure it out later. So he talked to Jeff about it, and Jeff confirmed what Linc figured out.”
“And what did Lincoln figure out?” Harry queried.
“That she’d been messing with Jeff’s head about Dad, me and Kennedy being Mom’s favorites, Dad being the man with the money and all the power, and how she knew, because Dad told her, when he did not, that Dad was done sharing Mom and his family with Lincoln. So he was cutting them off. Including Jeff. Especially Jeff, because he abhorred even looking at the child his brother made with the woman he considered his wife. That they were going to be cast out. No Mom. No brother and sister. No Seattle house. No home by the lake.”
Jesus.
What a fucking cunt.
Some bitterness crept in when Tru said, “What gets me about that is, not only did Dad love Jeff like Linc loved me and Kennedy, but also how hard Mom worked at making us all know that wasn’t the case. He was only fourteen when it happened, but he wasn’t thick. And it wasn’t like he was eight. By fourteen, you should be forming a moral compass. You should be able to rationalize things, especially when everything around you is screaming the exact opposite of what a woman your own father openly distrusts is spewing at you. They gave me that. They gave Kennedy that. The only way I can make it work in my head is that we all pampered him so much, somehow, it was underdeveloped in him. He shot Mom to death, and still, that seems the worse betrayal.”
Riggs could see that.
Tru kept at it.
“At the scene, Sharon told Linc that she’d tell everyone about their ‘sordid’ life, and how fucked up Jeff was. That he’d be tried as an adult, and even if he wasn’t, his life would be destroyed forever because he murdered his mother and uncle, and everyone would know it and guess why. She really did a number on Lincoln, who had just, it shouldn’t be forgotten, lost the love of his life and his twin brother, and his son committed the murders. She knew that, I’m sure, so she went in for yet another kill. So he told Jeff to take off his clothes, which he threw on the fire, and ordered him to go home and take a shower and not to say a word or leave the house. Then he called the cops.”
“Are you sure of this story?” Harry asked.
“I’m not sure of anything. I wasn’t there,” Tru answered. “I know what Linc told me, because it was up to me to make sure everyone kept their mouths shut so Jeff didn’t get into trouble. At the time, he just said there had been a terrible accident, Jeff was at fault, things were going to be out of his control, and we all had to do what we could to protect Jeff. Imagine my surprise when I found out that ‘accident’ was my fourteen-year-old brother shooting my mom and dad to death then burning their bodies. At least they let the horses out.”