They all sat in suspended animation as the seconds stretched on.
“Peter?” Eventually, Emelia broke the silence.
“Get out.” Peter’s face was blank, like a cold slate of marble. “Get out of my house. We’re done.”
“Now’s probably not the time to be making any hasty proclamations,” Lacey said. “It’s late. This is a big shock. Victor can leave and give you some space to process.”
If he had to guess, she was using the soothing voice she pulled out on difficult clients.
“I don’t need any space to process anything. I’ve been processing Victor’s crap for years.”
Victor had never seen Peter like this. When it came to him, his brother’s temper tended to run as red as his hair. This cold, clipped, matter-of-fact person was new. Peter looked at Victor with no emotion, and it turned his stomach more than any punch or outburst ever could have done.
“We’re done. I mean it.”
The words shredded him. Of all the things he’d expected to hear, it had not been that. At the least, his brother’s faith—the faith he’d always secretly coveted—would have kept a thread of hope in the frame.
Peter stood, and Victor braced himself for a fist in the face. But instead, his brother just walked around to the lounge door and held it open. “Get out of my house.”
“Peter, please.” Victor had never begged his brother for anything in his life, but he wasn’t above starting now. “I’ll go. But please, in a week, a month, whenever, just let me explain.”
“Why? You’ve resented me from the moment I was born. You’ve never been a brother to me. Not ever. You’ve been a bully. The person who went after everything that was mine. You never cared who you hurt to get what you wanted. I know that you’ve tried to change. I know that the last three years have probably felt long to you, but have you ever thought about how long the previous twenty-seven felt to me?” Peter shook his head. “I can’t even look at you.”
Victor stood up and walked toward the door without a backward glance. Peter was right. Everyone would be better off if he wasn’t around. He’d given his whole family nothing but grief for decades. He’d caused more pain and heartache than he could ever know. He had a daughter, a daughter, who didn’t even know his name and was no doubt better off for it.
He pulled open the front door and let the night envelop him.
Well, that went worse than Lacey had anticipated. And it had been a low bar.
She should have followed Victor out the door. But she’d been so shocked by Peter’s vitriol that it had taken the sound of Victor’s car peeling away to bring her back to her senses.
That had gotten her to her feet, demanding car keys from a stunned Emelia. She’d half expected to find Victor’s car wrapped around the power pole somewhere as she’d navigated the narrow streets. Had almost had a heart attack when she’d turned a corner to find a series of flashing lights and emergency vehicles.
Her heart still hadn’t slowed, even though neither of the two cars crumpled on the side of the road were his.
She didn’t know Victor well enough to know where he would go. Didn’t know Oxford well enough to have a clue what his favorite haunts were. If he had any favorite haunts.
So instead, she’d taken a stab at where an alcoholic would go after an enormous bust-up, searched Oxford pubs, and was slowly working her way through the list.
Thankfully, she’d remembered enough details about Victor’s car that she didn’t need to go into pubs and try and elbow her way through Friday night crowds looking for him. A quick scan of the streets and car parks nearby was enough.
She’d been to five so far. But Oxford was a student town. The list of remaining possibilities was long.
Lacey’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as she contemplated saying a prayer. She’d always been contemptuous of people who turned to God in times of crisis like he was some kind of magic genie that showed up on a whim and disappeared again when the moment had passed.
She’d always figured that if you got yourself into the mess without any help or hindrance from the divine, then you should get yourself out of it too.
Siri informed her she was approaching the sixth pub, so she started scanning the streets for Victor’s car. Nothing.