figured out Trent was the woman in the picture and had been hell-bent on exposing him. Files from Aaron White’s computer showed surveillance footage he and Hadley had taken during one of their stakeouts. It was a very clear, very damning video of Trent disposing of a body. The authorities surmised that these were what he’d been so desperate to get off the stolen flash drive that had never been recovered. Though we couldn’t be sure because, while Aaron White had been found OD’d on a park bench after he’d trashed Willow’s house, a Polaroid of him dead had been recovered at Trent’s house.
In some ways, nothing made sense.
In others, I was a fool not to see it earlier.
My father had beaten Trent every day of his life. But he’d never hated Malcom the way I had. He’d been the one to convince me that we needed to get our paychecks and leave town, but his real motive had been to buy himself time so he and his fellow sociopath could get a plan together. And considering that Malcom hadn’t seemed to care if he lived or died in the mall that day, maybe Trent had been the mastermind all along.
For years, he’d pretended to be the doting brother and uncle. He’d sat at my dining room table and taken my daughter on vacations. If I hadn’t seen his madness firsthand at my house that day, I’m not sure I would have believed he was capable of killing dozens of people. Let alone his own wife.
Jenn died that day. Recordings from my security cameras revealed that Trent had choked his loving wife with his bare hands. In a miracle, Alejandra survived. She’d sustained quite a few injuries, including a broken cheekbone, cracked ribs, and swelling on her brain. She’d put up one hell of a fight, but she was no match for Trent. An oblivious Rosalee had interrupted him before he’d been able to ensure she was dead. It was quite possibly the only thing that saved her life.
The minute Alejandra had come to in the hospital, she’d burst into tears, asking if Rosalee was all right. She was a good woman and while she was still on the mend, the doctors expected her to make a full recovery. We’d gone to visit her in the hospital, and for as many times as she’d admonished me for lying to Rosalee, I gave her hand a squeeze when she told my girl that she’d taken a tumble down the stairs. We all got a good laugh when Rosalee told her she should have held on to the rail.
There wasn’t much I could do to make up for what my brother had done to Alejandra. So I did the only thing I could think of—I fired her. Well, it was more like a retirement with full medical and a pension plan. It included a car and a house of her choosing with all utilities paid for the rest of her life. She took the pink slip in stride and negotiated that she still got to pick Rosalee up after school and got first refusal to keep her on nights and weekends when I was working or had plans. So, basically, we were back at square one, only her house was no longer in my backyard.
This was probably a good thing because I was never going back to that house.
Willow and I had both put our houses on the market, and we were staying at the beach house in the Outer Banks for a few weeks until we could find a place we could buy together. And, yes, it was going to be Willow’s name on the deed when it finally happened.
With an absolute clusterfuck of information flying through the Leary Police Department and national news banging down their doors, it had taken Doug and Beth less than one conversation to draw up paperwork to have Willow’s death certificate declared invalid. They had also ensured that any possible fraud charges against her would not be pursued on the grounds that she had been fearful of her life after Trent Hunt, a serial killer, had murdered her sister. Willow had been adamant about no more lies, but that was our chance—the out we desperately needed to be free forever. I’d all but gotten on my hands and knees, begging her to agree. Standing in front of a judge with Beast Mode Beth at her side, she’d finally let Hadley rest in peace and perjured