Page 33 of Our Lips Are Sealed
“But Livy jumped in front of us, thinking her mother wouldn’t shoot.”
“And did she?”
Samuel nodded with a deep exhale. “It was so fast. I couldn’t stop it.”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Liam offered. “You were just a kid.”
“That doesn’t matter,” Samuel yelled with two decades’ worth of self-loathing bursting through his usual detached state. He turned to face Liam. “I could have done something, but I just stood there.”
And here was Samuel’s wound, open and oozing. The others manifested their trauma in ways one could see or experience, but he’d hidden his, living with survivor’s guilt all these years. His mother’s early death probably only exacerbated the feeling, making it a hundred times worse.
“The bullet struck Livy in the head, and she fell into a heap on the floor, blood spurting everywhere.”
Samuel ran a shaking hand down his face, staring off at the framed photos sitting neatly on the cabinet in the alcove. His focus seemed to be mainly on the one up front which held the image of a group of children playing under Haven’s oaks. “I didn’t know it would look like that.”
“It’s never like it is in the movies.”
Taking two deep breaths, Samuel returned to sit on the couch. “Rebecca realized what she’d done, and put the gun under her chin, pulling the trigger.”
Liam’s mind laid out the scene. Eight people had been in that room, with three of them dead. That nagging feeling that he was only scratching the surface of their lies returned. “What was everyone else doing during all this?”
Samuel watched him curiously as Liam retrieved a notebook and pen. “Evie was struggling to get to Laura Jean, and I kept her back for as long as I could,” he said. “But I was still holding Jamison, and she was squirming to get down, so I had to let Evie go.”
Drawing out a rough design of what he thought the ballroom might have looked like based on the media room’s layout, Liam turned the paper towards Samuel. “Mark where everyone was, if you can.”
“I’m telling you, Cohen, this has nothing to do with your case.” Samuel took the pen from him. “I know you want it to, but this is a dead end.”
“Just do it,” Liam snapped, already coming up with several patterns and scenarios. “And talk while you draw.”
Samuel raised an eyebrow at the order but did as he asked. “When Evie got free, she ran but didn’t make it far because she tripped on Livy’s body and hit the floor hard, smacking her chin on the ground.” Rubbing his own chin, he scratched outXmarks in different spots on the paper. “She still carries a scar.”
“And did she make it to her mother before Laura Jean died?”
“I don’t know. She crawled over Livy, but I couldn’t see if she made it in time because my dad was crouched over Laura Jean, making this noise, like a scream, but worse.” Samuel drew twoXmarks side by side. “He was fucking dying right along with her.”
With his eyes on the paper, Liam nodded. “Then what happened?”
“Selah was in the hallway. He was coming around the corner right as Rebecca blew her head off, and all he could do was stand there shocked like we all were, listening to our dad scream.” Samuel drew anXby the door for Selah. “Simone came downstairs with CeCe, and when she saw what had happened, she ran off to find Devon. He’d taken the twins to shoot fireworks off the dock.”
“I’m guessing Rebecca had already killed Devon by this point?”
“Mathis always thought Devon and the twins happened upon her as she made her way to the house, and Rebecca opened fire on them.” Samuel tossed the pen on the table. “Devon was a good man. He loved his family and made life fun, especially for us kids,” he said. “It took Simone several minutes to find them. By then it was raining and fully dark. When she got there, Abe was bleeding out on the water’s edge, and Devon was dead.”
“Where was Annabeth?”
“Devon had tried to shield the twins from the gunfire, but as he went down, his body fell on Annabeth, trapping her face down in the sandy mud. She was basically suffocating under him, but still fighting to get out and get back to the house.”
The scope of the damage to poor Annabeth that night would have been evident shortly thereafter, with her mind locking her inside the place she’d seen as a sanctuary from all the violence.
“Her agoraphobia kicked in then, didn’t it?”
“Not right away, but yeah.”
Liam fell back in the chair. “Where was Charlie during all this?”
“Selah called the police, and they searched the grounds. The cops found him in the cottages, stabbed multiple times with a kitchen knife. Rebecca had left him for dead, but the bastard was still alive.”
This story was unbelievable, but Liam needed more. “Mathis buried this for your father. That’s why there are no reports on it. Why would he do that?”
