Chapter 3

They kept me under watch and wouldn’t let me use my phone.

All I could do was stay in the room and wait for the police to finish their investigation.

Dad and my uncle sat nearby, watching me and smoking one cigarette after another.

Whenever I met Dad’s eyes, I saw that he no longer saw me as his daughter. To him, I was an enemy—a monster who had tormented him for ten years.

I didn’t blame him.

I saw my mother’s murder. I saw the killer’s face, and I remembered everything.

Yet no matter what Dad did, he couldn’t get a word of it out of me.

He loved Mom.

After she died, bringing her killer to justice became the only thing that kept him going.

He gave up everything and spent ten years chasing answers until he barely seemed alive.

But he found nothing.

Then he discovered I could speak. The shock hadn’t left me unable to talk.

I was pretending and hiding what I knew.

He also found out that I had been raped.

The man who raped me died on the street a week before Mom’s murder, his limbs twisted grotesquely.

Dad suspected I killed him.

In his mind, I was capable of murder and ruthless enough to do it, so he concluded that I blamed Mom too and hired someone to kill her. That was why I refused to identify her killer.

His reasoning made sense.

I didn’t defend myself.

I waited in silence for the police to finish their investigation.

Ring, ring—

Dad’s phone rang. He answered it at once.

I knew the voice on the other end well. It was Leo Lane, the lead investigator. “Darren, are you with Lynn?”

Dad’s voice was hoarse. “Yes! Did Lynn have anything to do with that monster’s death?”

“Yes. Keep Lynn there. We’re on our way.”

The moment the call ended, Dad punched me hard in the face.

“If you could kill the man who hurt you, why did you keep blaming your mother?

“She didn’t refuse to call the police because she didn’t love you. She thought she was protecting you! Things were different back then. She was afraid people would shame you until you couldn’t bear it!

“Before she came back to stay with you, she missed you so much she couldn’t sleep. She held your photo and cried night after night.

“How… how could you…”

Dad couldn’t finish.

He broke down, buried his face in his hands, and cried until his voice turned raw.

My uncle smoked in silence. He looked at me as though I were a stranger, or some kind of monster.

I held my swollen cheek and stared at the ceiling without expression.

A tear seemed to slide down my face. It tickled.

I wiped it away and told myself, “Soon. It’ll be soon. This will all be over soon.”

Twenty minutes later, Leo arrived with several officers.

He snapped cold handcuffs around my wrists.

“Lynn Wade, you’re suspected of involvement in a murder from ten years ago. Come with us for questioning.”