“It’s covered in blood, Kane! And it’s all bashed in! Did you—”

“No. No!” he says, reaching over to grab me. I skirt away, around the bed, but he’s too fast. He leaps over the bed and takes me by the shoulders. “Listen. I don’t know why that’s there.”

“You’re lying,” I say. Of course he knows. Kane was proud of each and every one of his trophies. It had been missing from his dresser, and yet he hadn’t said a thing about it. If it had suddenly disappeared, he would’ve wanted to know what had happened to it. “It’s his blood, isn’t it?”

He stares at me for a full ten seconds before he nods. He closes his eyes.

“Tell me.”

He takes a deep breath. “I never went to school that Valentine’s Day. Our parents were away, so I’d stayed up late the night before, watching sports on television, and I’d fallen asleep on the couch. I woke up late and went upstairs to get ready for school, and I nearly fucking tripped on him.”

My breath hitches.

“He was dead. Just lying there in the hallway. He’d been hit in the head with the trophy, and I saw the blood.” He collapses suddenly, falling down on the bed, hunching over and burying his head in his arms.

My mouth opens, trying to form words. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. After all this…it was true? “He was murdered?”

His head bobs a yes. He speaks to the floor, his voice muffled by his arms. “And all I could think was that the last time I’d seen you, you were so upset. You told me you couldn’t live like that, apart from Declan.”

“But I…”

“So I hid the trophy. I was going to put it in his room, but I’d grown up in this house and didn’t want…so I dragged him out to the shed. I…I didn’t know what to do. I…” He takes in a shaky breath, then lets it out slowly. “I found my father’s gun. I propped him up in there. I made it look like a suicide.”

“My God,” I breathe out, covering my mouth with my hands. “You shot him?”

“He was already dead,” Kane says, his voice trembling. “You have to believe that he was already dead.”

“But why?” I shout at him, no longer able to stand on my own. I sink onto the bed next to him, stunned. “If he was murdered, why would you do that?”

He looks at me, and there are tears in his eyes. “Why do you think? Goddamn it, Hailey, everything I’ve ever done is to protect you.”

The Day After

The Weeks family was already talking funeral plans. He’d been dead one day, and they were at the funeral parlor, making arrangements.