Her Scream in the Silence (Carly Moore #2) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,97
asking questions about Lula. I’m responsible for her being taken.”
I’d been trying not to think about it, but the thought had been there with me all day.
His voice softened. “You are not responsible, Carly.”
“No one would have taken her if I hadn’t been asking questions.”
He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, all the fight had bled out of him. “Do you really think Max is part of all this?”
“He’s part of it in some way. We just haven’t figured out how.”
And part of me didn’t want to.
Chapter Twenty-Four
We were silent for the rest of the drive. I was trying to make all the information Marco and I had found fit together, and I was sure Wyatt was thinking about what we’d told him. He might be estranged from his brother, but it was obvious that he cared.
When Wyatt pulled up in front of Hank’s house, he turned off the engine and started to open the door but stopped when he realized I wasn’t moving.
He shifted sideways to face me, the vinyl under his legs creaking.
I kept my gaze fixed on the windshield. “Why are you and Max at odds? You were close as kids. What happened to tear you apart?”
He sat still for so long I didn’t think he was going to answer, but he finally said, “It’s not one thing. It’s the culmination of a lot of things. Our father always treated us differently. Max called me the golden boy. He claimed I could do no wrong in our father’s eyes, while Max was always in trouble.”
He shifted in his seat again, stretching out his legs and resting his wrist on the steering wheel while he released a bitter laugh. “It was true. Our father always made it clear I would take over the family businesses, and he prepared me for it from a young age. He didn’t spend any time on Max. In my father’s eyes, there was no point to it. So Max saw no point in trying to follow the rules.
“Believe it or not, we were still close. We were still brothers, and I understood his pain.” He took a breath. “It helped when Max went away to college. Even though he had Marco as a tether to this place, it was the first time he’d finally had a chance to live his life out from underneath the shadow of the Drum legacy. Nobody gave a shit that his family owned the middling Drummond distillery, and the logging business was long gone. Max was finally free, and he thrived there. He was making plans to move to Nashville with Marco after graduation. He was happy.”
“So what happened? Your arrest?”
“Like I said, a lot of things. He resented that our father forced him to come home to take over the bar.”
“But how could he force him?” I asked. “He was in his last semester of college. If Bart threatened to cut him off financially, Max could have found a job to help cover the rent and food.”
“Max’s relationship with our father has always been complicated. While Max hated the way he was treated, part of him still wanted our father to love him. So when Bart came callin’, my brother came runnin’ home.”
I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t that easy for him. He didn’t come back until your mother went to see him.”
Wyatt’s body froze. “What?”
“You didn’t know?” I asked. “That’s the story Marco told me. He got your dad’s call and blew him off. But your mother came to see him, and he went on a bender. He left to go home a few days after that.”
Wyatt sat still, staring out the windshield. “I have to go.”
“You have to go talk to Max?” I waited several seconds for him to respond, and when he didn’t, I shook my head and reached for the door handle. “Screw you, Wyatt.” Jerking the door open, I jumped out and slammed it shut behind me.
He was out of the truck and at the front of the hood before I got there. “What the hell, Carly? You want me to open up, and I did, but it’s still not enough?”
Shaking with frustration, I shouted, “No! It’s not enough. I asked a yes or no question, and you refused to answer. A yes or no question about whether you’re going to see your brother!”
“This is complicated!” he shouted. “And believe it or not, it’s not all about you!”