I’m shaking my head back and forth, not really believing what he’s saying, but something inside of me knows it’s the truth.
“What did you do? What the hell did you do?” I whisper angrily.
He clears his throat uncomfortably and refuses to look me in the eye.
“We tried to get her to leave town, to forget about you and just move on. It was easy enough with the handful of other women you’ve dated through the years, so we figured it would work out the same way with Olivia. The pregnancy threw a wrench in everything, though. It made her angrier, more volatile and dangerous. We didn’t know what she was capable of until it was too late. When I tell you that we thought she was doing better, I really mean it. When she found out about that baby, everything blew up in our faces. We wanted Olivia to leave, to go away before she found out, but that girl wouldn’t budge. When we found out she went into labor early, we knew. We knew what she’d done, but it was too late to fix things. All we did by trying to hide the truth was make it worse.”
“Jesus Christ,” Garrett mutters from behind me.
“I came here hoping she’d be here, hoping she wasn’t going to do something stupid. She completely lost it earlier when we went to visit her, but they put her on lock down and we thought that was the end of it. We can’t repair the damage she’s caused, but we were hoping we could keep her from doing something worse than what she’s already accomplished. I got a call a few hours ago that she’d somehow gotten out and I knew. I knew she’d come back here to finish it.”
I sink down into the chair across from my father and wonder when the hell everyone around me went crazy. Lies and conspiracies, cover-ups and jealousies that I can’t even comprehend… is this really my life right now?
“Where is she, Charles? Where the hell is Vivien?” Garrett questions.
My father looks up at him in confusion. “Vivien? How the hell would I know? I’m talking about Caroline.”
He leans forward on the couch and his eyes meet mine. “Your sister is sick. Very, very sick. Your mother just wanted to protect you. And her. In her own twisted way, she thought she was doing what was best and I went along with it. I should have put an end to this damn charade a long time ago. I should have never let it get as far as it did. You, Olivia and that baby, you all paid the price for our mistakes and you have no idea how sorry I am for that.”
I think about every memory I have of Caroline, from the day they brought her home from foster care to our conversation this morning. She’s always been possessive of me and my time, but I never thought it was anything more than a younger sister, older brother, hero-worship sort of thing. She looked up to me and she needed me and I loved every minute of it. I loved being needed by someone when my parents were too busy with their own lives to care. I guess I didn’t allow myself to see the jealousy in her eyes when I introduced her to someone I was dating, but it was there. It was always there. She wanted to be friends with Olivia the very first time she met her, to hang out with us whenever she was in town. Her snide comments when I was affectionate towards Olivia or when we talked about our future always made me laugh and roll my eyes at her. How in the hell did I miss her rage and jealousy? Why didn’t I see the evil boiling underneath the surface? All those shopping trips, all those vacations over the years that she laughed off and my parents complained about… those were the times she was locked away so the doctors could try and fix her. Not my father, Caroline. Why did they lie? Why would my mother create such an elaborate story about my father being insane when all this time it was Caroline?
“Excuse me, sir?”
I look up at one of the police officers standing next to my chair.
“We just went through the mess in the office down the hall and it looks like someone set a fire in the garbage can next to the desk. It must’ve burned out pretty quick because some of the pieces are still in tact. Does this look like something the perpetrator might have been looking for?”
My heart skips a beat when he says the word “perpetrator,” knowing that he’s referring to my sister. My fucking sister!
I grab the paper out of his hands, the edges charred and a few pieces of ash falling away and onto my lap. I stare at what’s left of the paper in my hand, recognizing the blue graph lines and measurements immediately.
“I know where she took her. FUCK! I know where she took her!” I yell, throwing the burnt page to the ground and pushing myself up from the chair.
I hear Garrett calling my name, but I ignore him. I forget about the pain in my knee and I move as fast as I can out the door and into the rain, racing to my car.
“YOU GOT WHAT you wanted, Caroline. Cole doesn’t want anything to do with me. You don’t have to do this,” I plead with her as we stand under the roof, out of the pouring rain.
She has the gun pointed at my chest and I know there’s no reasoning with her, but I can’t help it. Fight or flight has kicked in. I can’t flee, but I sure as hell can try to fight.
“Oh please. Like he isn’t going to come running back to you the first chance he gets. I was the one who stood by him all these years, ME! Not our mother, not our father, but me. Then you had to come along and fuck it all up. You, with your dark skin and hair… nothing like the little blonde twits he brought home all those years. This house should be mine. You don’t deserve it. I DESERVE IT!”
Her angry shout echoes through the shell of the house and is punctuated with a loud clap of thunder.