Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 93312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Taking a deep breath, I bring my fist up to knock on the door. I don’t hear anything, so I knock again, louder this time, leaning in to listen.
“Coming, fuck,” my brother’s voice calls out, sounding less than pleased. I hear him shuffling around, and then the knob is turning. “I told you to stop leaving your key here—oh.” He stops short when he realizes it’s me and not his roommate.
He looks like he just crawled out of bed. His hair is messy, the stubble on his jaw longer than I’ve ever seen it before.
“Surprise,” I say weakly, ducking under his arm that holds the door open.
He follows me into his dorm, kicking the door shut behind him. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”
“Aren’t you?” I toss back.
“Touché.” He scratches his jaw, uncomfortable. “What are you doing here, Shayne?” He ambles back over to his bed and plops down onto the edge of it. Beer bottles and food containers litter the floor and every surface on his side of the room. On the other side of the room is a matching bed and some storage containers with wheels underneath, a desk that must be for both of them, and not much else.
I walk over, standing in front of him, arms folded over my chest. “I’ve been calling you. A lot.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yeah, so you’ve mentioned. What’s going on with you?”
“There’s nothing—”
“I swear to God, Grey, if you lie to me one more time. You don’t take my calls, you barely respond to texts, and you haven’t set foot in Sawyer Point in almost a year.” Even before we moved back to Sawyer Point, he rarely visited us.
“Why would I? There’s nothing left in that town for me.”
Ouch. “Thanks.”
“Dammit, Shayne, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? Because you bailed on me when I needed you the most.”
Grey’s eyes are full of concern when he looks up at me. “What do you mean?” He stands. “What’s wrong?”
In the weeks that followed Danny’s death, Grey had already checked out, both physically and mentally before we even moved out of Whittemore. He went back to school, so he has no idea what happened during that time.
“Danny died, Mom and August split, and then you left. And now…”
“Now, what?”
“Now I’m just…alone.” It sounds pathetic even to my own ears, but I keep going. “Mom is hiding something. You never talk to me anymore. Everyone’s keeping secrets. I had to move back to the town where all my old friends hate me.”
“Back up. What’s up with Mom?”
I roll my eyes. Of course that’s the part of the story he’d focus on. “I don’t know. You know that weird sniff thing she does when she’s lying?”
He nods.
“She does it a lot. And I saw her with some random guy a few weeks back, looking pretty cozy. Just this morning, she was whispering on the phone with August.”
His brows furrow together in thought as he swipes a discarded t-shirt from the floor and pulls it on over his head. “I don’t see how that’s exactly a case for the FBI, Shayne.”
“It’s not only that,” I say, feeling frustrated. Grey moves around the room, swiping some deodorant under his arms, then grabs his hat from the small table next to his bed. “I can’t explain it. I just get the feeling that there’s something going on that we don’t know about.”
Grey keeps moving around the room, looking anywhere but my direction as he collects his keys and wallet. His cagey behavior is starting to make me feel on edge.
“Did you have a fight with Danny?” I ask point-blank. Grey tenses, and an uneasy feeling creeps up my spine. “The night he died,” I clarify.
“Where did you hear that?” he asks, his tone defensive, his hazel eyes finally meeting mine.
“Thayer mentioned—”
“You’re still talking to Thayer?” His eyebrows shoot up.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I don’t want you around him. Or any of them.”
I huff out a bitter laugh. “That’s rich coming from someone who can’t even bother to return a phone call.” They’ve been there for me more than he has this past year, which is really something considering we were enemies only three seconds ago.
“I’m sorry, okay?” he yells. “I was going through my own shit, stuck in my head, and I didn’t realize you’d be going through it, too.”
“Just tell me what happened that night.”
“I can’t.”
I shake my head, disappointment rolling off me in waves. “Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“What?” he barks, his head snapping up to meet my eyes, and I see the realization set in. “Is that why you’re here? You think I killed Danny?”
“No,” I say, considering my words and how much to tell him. I decide to come out and just say it, because it’s been nearly a year of secrecy, and everyone knows that secrets can only hide out in the dark. It’s time to shed some light. “But someone did.”