Page 56 of Bleeding Hearts Duet

“What?”

“Whether you still think I’m a monster or not.”

His voice was distant again, but I didn’t let it affect me or my response. I’d been vulnerable enough to him already tonight, and this little game he was playing was a very real reminder of our circumstances.

“Does it matter what I think?” I turned the words back around on him.

There was a long pause before he answered. “It shouldn’t.”

I didn’t have time to think of a response because a moment later he kissed me on the cheek and rolled out of bed.

“I’m going for a run,” he said. “Get some sleep, Brighton.”

***

I sat out on the back porch, sipping a steaming cup of hot coffee. The fog from the bay rolled off the water and into the back yard, completing the eery feeling of this house.

Ryland had been gone for over two hours, and I couldn’t sleep without him. I didn’t bother venturing up to the third level again because it was too creepy to consider.

I didn’t understand how he could spend any time here alone. The sorrow that surrounded this house was deep and profound, and I wondered why Ryland would even own a place like this. The more I uncovered about him, the more I was convinced that something horrible happened in his past.

Before I could stop myself, I pulled up google on my phone. But instead of typing in Ryland’s name, I typed in something else that I was certain I never would again.

Lockhart Family in Chicago.

Article after article flooded the results, and I hovered over them with a hesitant finger. I didn’t want to see their faces. To see the entire family my brother had eradicated. But I couldn’t stop myself this time.

I skipped over the articles about the accident and moved to the biographical information. I focused my search efforts on the only remaining survivor, Michael Lockhart. The patriarch of the family and a well-loved businessman, he seemed for all intents and purposes to have the perfect life. His business was based out of Chicago, but it stated he was from California originally. It would have been a little too coincidental for my liking if it weren’t for the next piece of information I stumbled on.

I was surprised to learn his life had also been cut short not long after the accident.

Michael Lockhart, age 49 passed away from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The shocking news comes only six months after the death of his wife Katherine and children Jackson and Sophia in a tragic hit and run…

My stomach knotted, and bile rose in my throat. I didn’t want to know anymore. I couldn’t.

Then as if the universe had a sick sense of humor, my cell phone rang a God-awful tone, making me wince.

“Hello?” I answered wearily.

Norma-Jean and I didn’t talk very often. So if she was calling, there must be a good reason.

“Brighton, it’s your… it’s Norma-Jean,” she replied in her gravelly tone.

If I wasn’t concerned before, the fact she’d almost said it’s your mother sent alarm bells off inside my head. Not since I was ten years old had she allowed me to call her that. During one of her phases, she decided to reinvent herself, scrounging up the money to change her name. She went into the courthouse as Patty Valentine and came out as Norma-Jean Richmond. She said she thought it made her sound classier. I silently rebutted that she was only fooling herself.

“What’s going on?” I asked, getting straight to the point.

There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line which only made me more anxious.

“What is it, Norma?” I demanded. “Is Brayden okay?”

“He’s been attacked again,” she spat out as though it were somehow my fault.

Blood roared in my ears, and I had to hold onto to the table to keep myself upright.

“How bad is it?” I croaked.

This wasn’t the first time Brayden had been attacked. He’d been a target from the moment he stepped foot in the MCC. By the time his sentence was handed down, and he was transferred to Greenville, his face had been splashed across every major news outlet that ever existed. People all over the nation paused to shed tears for the victims of the horrific crime that had taken place. It was a story that pulled at the heartstrings of every man, woman, and child… myself included. But someone had to stand by Brayden’s side, and that someone was me. He was my twin brother, my lifeblood, and I knew in my heart he wasn’t capable of such recklessness.

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