Page 109 of Juniper Bean Resorts to Murder

“Maybe,” I say, “if she knew who had done it. But she didn’t. It happened at your home,” I go on, tracking every twitch of his muscles, every fleeting emotion that passes through his eyes. “Here, in this house.”

Oh my goodness. I didn’t think of it like that before this very second. I am sitting in the home where I was conceived, where my mother was attacked.

My stomach turns as bile rises in my throat, and I slap my hand over my mouth, forcing deep breaths in and then out until I’m positive I’m not going to hurl all over this man and his fancy desk.

Then I go on. “From what I’ve cobbled together, she was here with you, Thomas, and Cam Verido. It was the summer after your senior year, shortly before the three of you left for school. That night she was drugged and assaulted. She learned she was pregnant several weeks later.”

“In my—” Lionel says, and it sounds like he’s choking on his water once more, only he hasn’t taken another drink. “In my home—”

“I believe so, yes.” I blink several times, trying to push back the tears that burn in the corners of my eyes.

And then Lionel erupts out of his chair—he stands so suddenly that I jump, and from behind me, Aiden’s hands tighten on my shoulders.

“We would never,” Lionel says through gritted teeth, bracing white-knuckled hands on the edge of his desk and knocking over his glass of water. It empties quickly all over his desk, staining folders and papers and pooling under his keyboard, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “None of us would ever have done that.Ever.”

The truth hits me then as his eyes blaze down at me: this man loved my mother. It’s plain as day.

Did he love the woman she became, sad and broken, whose best still wasn’t enough? Because that’s the unfortunate truth about my mother: she tried. I really think she did. And she loved me. Butloveandtrying hardwere not enough.

Sometimes those things are not enough.

And is love more than the sum of its parts? If you lose all the parts of yourself that someone fell in love with, will they still love you?

Is there a love that says simplyI love you because you exist?

I don’t know. I don’t know any of that.

But I think…I think I believe Lionel.

“Fine. In that case, what was my mother’s relationship with Rocco like?”

“With—withRocco?” he splutters.

I nod. “Your brother has a lot of feelings about you. But I’m not sure I believe what he’s told me.”

Lionel pushes off his desk, standing up straight and rolling his eyes. It seems like he’s taking a second to collect himself; he runs his hand through his hair and takes a few deep breaths before returning to his seat. Only then does his gaze return to mine, studying me and every now and then jumping up to where I know Aiden is standing behind me.

Finally he speaks. “I am not, strictly speaking, agoodman,” he says. He sounds tired. “But I can guarantee that I am nowhere near as evil as my brother likes to claim, and Icertainlyam not a rapist.”

“Then tell me about Rocco,” I say softly.

“Your mother didn’t like Rocco,” he says. “He made her uncomfortable. So I never let him hang around us. I kept him away.”

“He made her uncomfortable?” I say, my pulse jumping. “How so?”

“Rocco was very open about his appreciation of your mother. She rejected his advances, but he still came onto her. Over-the-top compliments, little touches, that kind of thing. He refused to take a hint.” He pauses, disconcertion twisting his face, lending wrinkles to his brow. “Explain to me what happened with the girl, please.”

“We aren’t—we’re not completely certain,” I admit. “I can tell you what I think might have happened.”

Lionel nods slowly but doesn’t speak, which I take as my cue to go on.

“I think your brother was sleeping with Sandra. I think he killed her when she threatened to tell me that he was my—my—father.”

The only change in Lionel’s expression is a slight narrowing of his eyes. “What evidence do you have for all of this?”

So I tell him. I start at the beginning, with the couple at Grind and Brew, and work through everything that has happened since then—Sandy’s note, her dead body, the texts Tonya is still receiving. The manuscript my mother left behind, Thomas Freese’s suspicious death, Gus’s claim that Sandy was seeing a teacher, the fuchsia sweatshirts, the dead chicken—I take all my rambling thoughts and dump them out on Lionel Astor’s desk in a pile of word vomit and half-formed conclusions.

“So my question,” I say when I’ve finished, “is whether you think your brother is capable of those things.”

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