once served as her coffin. No, everywhere, all around. Free. She was perfect now. No longer chained by the circumstances of her birth and her cruel disease.
With a deep intake of breath, she pushed off the blackened piece of timber, walking slowly around the side of the foundation, overgrown with weeds and vines, toward the hole in the ground that had once served as her personal hell. She’d climbed out of it that night, but in some ways, she still resided there. In some ways, maybe part of her always would.
You didn’t let the monsters in. And you didn’t retreat into yourself either. You focused on Mady. You turned your mind to her, down there in the dark, didn’t you? You focused on your love for her.
Did she? Was that true? She’d never thought of it that way but . . . maybe.
As she rounded the corner, a glint of metal in the trees caught her eye and she looked up, frowning when she saw a small silver trailer situated between two tall buckeyes, obscured from the front by the trees and the parts of the house still standing.
As she stood staring at it in confusion, the door swung open and a man appeared.
No, no, it can’t be. A moan came up her throat. Don’t hurt me.
Liza stepped back, almost tripping over her own feet. Her father, it was her father. She picked up a stick lying on the ground and began backing away.
He put his hands up, his eyes seemingly as wide with alarm as her own. “Wait, stop, I won’t hurt you, Liza. Don’t go.”
Julian?
Oh God, it was her brother. The surprise of that realization caused her to halt.
He was moving toward her, only a few feet away now, and she saw that while the man Julian had become resembled their father, it was also clearly not him. But that didn’t mean this man wasn’t dangerous.
Liza waved the stick, calculating her chances of running back to her car and making it inside if he took chase. “Don’t come any closer.”
Julian stopped, putting his hands in his pockets. He was wiry and tall, just like their father, but Julian didn’t appear to have the same strength their father had had. She could see his ribs beneath the white T-shirt he wore, and his cheekbones were starkly defined, causing shadows, and making him appear much older than his thirty-two years. He lowered his head, looking up at her with raised eyes. “I won’t hurt you,” he repeated.
“You broke into my home,” she said, because she knew now it had been him. There was no doubt.
He dug his hands further into his pockets. “I didn’t think you’d agree to see me. I just . . .” His words faded away as he raised his head, squinting up at the sky for a minute. “I feel her here. Do you?” He looked at her. “Mady.”
Anger ratcheted through Liza and she stood straight. “Don’t you dare say her name,” she hissed. She used the stick to indicate what used to be their home behind them. “You left her there to burn to death!” The last word emerged on a choke.
Julian shook his head. “I smothered her first. With a pillow. She was already dead when I set the fire.”
Liza shook her head, her brow knitting together. “What? No, you never said that at the trial.”
Julian shrugged. “Didn’t matter.”
Liza regarded him. He appeared small. Broken. Old. His eyes had that look that she recognized sometimes in her patients. He wasn’t all there.
Didn’t matter, he’d said. And maybe it didn’t matter. He had killed Mady, regardless. Taken the one person Liza had loved—an innocent child. He’d left Liza for dead.
She didn’t necessarily want it to, but her anger began to drain, and along with it, her fear. Still, she kept her distance, and she didn’t drop her makeshift weapon. “Why did you leave me the rose, Julian? And in my house? You scared me to death.”
He licked his chapped lips, chewed at them for a second. “I didn’t want to scare you. I just wanted to see you. To know you . . . survived.”
Her mouth fell open slightly. She didn’t even know what to say.
“I left you that rose because I wanted to say I was sorry.”
“You’re sorry?”
He lowered his gaze again. “Yeah. I shouldn’t have done it that way, all those years ago . . . that night. It wasn’t right. I get that now.”