Cal turns toward me, his eyes red and glassy behind his twisted glasses. A slow smile spreads across his face. “Because, dear Melinda, blood is thicker than water, as the old saying goes. Keith is my big brother.”

I choke on a breath. My heart pounds. Oh my God. I pull my stiff fingers into fists. Why didn’t I know? Why couldn’t I have felt it, seen it in his face?

“We don’t look much alike, do we? Half-brothers. We had different dads. I’m the better looking, though, right? Smarter too. Much smarter.”

“You’re Keith’s brother?” My brain tries to make sense of it all. “I didn’t know he had a brother.” But what did I know at six years old about Keith’s family?

This seems to anger Cal. “I know. All the focus was on Keith. He was some sort of celebrity. But I hated his fucking guts. He used to torment me when we were little, and I was glad as hell when my mom sent him to Albany that summer.” Cal snorts. “But then she turned on me. Told me I’d never measure up to Keith.” Cal shakes his head. “That idiot? I thought. Even as a kid, I knew he was dumb as a box of rocks. But all she talked about was her sweet oldest son. I guess her first husband was the love of her life, and so his spawn was like a god.”

Cal gets slowly to his feet and begins to pace. “They’ll write a book about me, Melinda. That’ll show Keith. I’ll be the most famous brother.” He stops walking and looks at me. “At first, I wanted to be in Jay’s book, but of course that didn’t happen. Jay figured out something was going on with me way too soon.” He grimaces and runs his hand through his dark hair. “He was a better shrink than I gave him credit for. Of course, he didn’t know that I had killed anybody, but he was getting too damn close. Asking too many questions about my feelings.” Cal huffs out a derisive breath.

“Were Jay and Annalise your only victims?” I ask, my voice quivering.

He heaves a deep breath, shrugs. “Maybe I’m not as accomplished as some, but with all this.” He opens his arms, sweeps the basement. “The girl in the cellar connection. Now that’ll warrant a book, maybe a couple, not just a chapter in Jay’s. I’ll be more famous than my idiot big brother ever was. Too bad my mother isn’t around to see it.”

“And that’s important?”