being charitable. But I suspect it might have been something else—like a guilt-prompted desire to pay them off.
I gulp down more bourbon, hoping it will stop me from thinking this way. I should be certain of my father’s innocence. Instead, I’m the opposite. Waffling and unsure.
“Do you think it’s possible to believe two things at once?” I ask Dane.
“It depends on if those things cancel each other out,” he says. “For example, I believe Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. I also believe he’s an asshole. One belief does not negate the other. They can exist at the same time.”
“I was talking about something more personal.”
“You’re in New England. The Patriots are personal.”
On one hand, I’m grateful for the way Dane is trying to take my mind off things with the booze and the banter, but it’s also frustrating—the same kind of avoidance tactics my parents used.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I say. “I truly believe my father wasn’t capable of killing anyone, let alone a sixteen-year-old girl. He was never violent. Never raised a hand to hurt me. Plus, I knew him. He was doting and decent and kind.”
“You also think he was a liar,” Dane says, as if I need reminding.
“He was,” I say. “Which is why I can’t stop thinking that maybe he did do something. That if the Book was a lie, then maybe everything about him was. The things he said. The way he acted. His entire life. Maybe no one really knew him. Not even me.”
“You really think he killed Petra?”
“No,” I say.
“Then you think he’s innocent.”
“I didn’t say that, either.”
The truth is that I don’t know what I think. Even though all signs point to his being involved in Petra’s death, I’m having a hard time seeing my father as a killer. Equally difficult is thinking he’s completely innocent. He lied to me literally until the end of his life. And people don’t lie unless they’re hiding something.
Or want to spare someone the truth.
Whatever that truth is, I know Petra’s death was part of it.
“One thing is clear,” Dane says, interrupting my thoughts. “Your reason for coming here has changed. Big-time.”
My plans for the house have, that’s for certain. Even if the police let me back into Baneberry Hall to renovate it, I’m not sure I still want to. From a brutally practical standpoint, it’s foolish. That house will sell for a wisp of what it’s worth, if it can be sold at all after this new tragic development.
But I look at the project through a more human lens. Petra Ditmer had spent more than two decades rotting inside Baneberry Hall. A horrible fate. When I think about it that way, it’s easy to agree with Chief Alcott. Baneberry Hall should be reduced to rubble.
“I came here to learn the truth,” I tell Dane. “That’s still my goal. Even if I might not like what that truth turns out to be.”
“And the house?”
“I’ll be back there tomorrow.” I throw my arms open, gesturing to the sun-bleached wall and stained ceiling and shag carpet that smells of mildew. “But tonight, I get to live in the lap of luxury.”
Dane shifts on the edge of his bed until we’re facing each other, our knees almost touching. The mood in the room has changed. An electricity passes between us, tinged with heat. Only then do I realize my arms-wide gesture has thrown the blanket from my shoulders, leaving me sitting in just a towel.
“I can stay here with you,” Dane says, his voice husky. “If you want me to.”
God, it’s tempting. Especially with a quarter bottle of bourbon in me and Dane looking the way he does. My gaze keeps returning to that hole in his shirt and its tantalizing glimpse of flesh. It makes me want to see what he looks like without the shirt. It would be easy to make that happen. One tug of this towel is all it would take.
And then what? All my conflicting emotions and confusion will still be there in the morning, this time complicated further by the mixing of work and pleasure. Once you tie the two of them together, it’s nearly impossible to untangle them again.
“You should go,” I say as I pull the blanket back around my shoulders.
Dane nods once. No asking me if I’m absolutely, positively sure. No turning on the charm in the hope I’ll change my mind.