Oliver and I had arrived home to a hundred distressed questions from Debra about Oliver’s injuries, but she never got the answers she was looking for as he ushered her out the door without barely a thanks for watching the kids. She wasn’t the only one stuck with unanswered questions. I sorted through them while Oliver nursed his hands. Had Marin targeted our family to get to Vera? If Vera was truly safe with Bennett, was the threatening voicemail about Vera being dead just a twisted newsmonger trying to scare me? Who ran me off the road? And the biggest one of all: how many of us had been keeping secrets, and how deep did they go?

Vaults full of mysteries stretched deep in Oliver’s family line, all starting with Alvera Fields, the loose end that seemed to tie everything together. She was the reason Vera dug into the past. She was the reason Vera discovered the truth. She was the catalyst for Vera running away. Even a dead woman, long gone as ashes in the wind, could scorch the earth. Something deep inside me knew she was the key to finding Vera. But I didn’t know how. I couldn’t see the connection clear enough.

There was only one path on which to move forward. The treacherous one I had dreaded and avoided all this time, but it was the inevitable one.

Oliver was stretched across the sofa with his feet in my lap. Pressing frozen peas to his bloody knuckles, he showed not an ounce of remorse for what he had done to his brother. I hardly recognized any of my family anymore. Six months had chipped away who we were and replaced us with monsters.

“I’m going to tell the police everything and turn myself in.” I looked at Oliver’s socked feet as I said it, unable to meet his gaze.

“No, there has to be another way.”

“What other way? We have no idea if Bennett is still alive, or where he took Vera. She could be stranded somewhere with his dead corpse. I can’t wait for answers anymore. I’m all out of hope. Look at us!” I threw my arms wide in exasperation. “You beat the crap out of your own brother, not that he didn’t deserve it. Cody’s becoming a drunk. Meanwhile I’m so zoned out I’m forgetting my kids at karate class. Only the police can help us now. We know who she’s with. Maybe they’ll be able to find them now that we have a name that they can trace.”