Page 13 of Twisted Truths
“Are you sorry? You and Zara broke up.”
Tanner blinks, his gaze bouncing from me, to Levi, and back. “I don’t understand?—”
“Why did you break up, Tanner?” Levi demands. “When she came home, she was a shell of her former self, and not long after, she joined the Circle. What did you do to her?”
He sneers, his body shifting to a defensive stance. “I didn’t do anything to her. She left me. I came home from work one day and she’d packed her bags.”
“Did she mention Gabriel or the Circle to you before she left?” I ask, watching him carefully for any tells.
I’m not disappointed. His fists clench by his sides and his jaw tightens. “No. Like I said, one minute we were fine, and the next she was gone.”
“Did you hurt her?” I level him with a heavy stare.
Tanner flinches, and for a moment his eyes flicker withsomething I can’t discern—guilt, or maybe fear—but then he straightens, his shoulders stiffening.
“I didn’t hurt her,” he grits out, glaring at us. “I’m sorry about what happened to your family, but it’s got nothing to do with me. Zara walked out, and I haven’t spoken to her since. Her phone was disconnected, and when I went to your parent’s house to talk to her, she’d already moved to Solomon’s commune.”
“What I don’t understand iswhymy sister moved to the Sunfire Circle.” I close the space between us. “The only reason I can come up with is she was trying to get away from you.” I punctuate my statement with a finger to Tanner’s chest. “So, why did she leave you, huh? What did you do?”
Tanner’s eyes flash with anger, and I brace myself, but rather than taking a swing at me, he grits his teeth and takes a step back, crossing his arms. “I’m just as much in the dark as you are. I loved Zara, and I was blindsided when she left.”
“Yeah?” I scoff. “Why aren’t you more distraught over her death?”
He narrows his eyes. “You have no idea what I’m feeling. I think you should leave. I’ve got nothing else to tell you.”
Silence hangs thick in the air as we face off, but then Levi grabs my arm and pulls me back towards the car. “He won’t admit to anything. Let’s get out of here. We’ll get our answers elsewhere.”
I rip my arm from his grasp, my pulse racing as I turn back to Tanner, fury burning in my chest. “You owe her more than that. We’re going to find out what happened, and trust me, if I find out you hurt her, I’ll do worse.”
Tanner doesn’t even flinch. His eyes are cold as he smirks, waving his fingers in a mocking gesture.
I fight the urge to wipe the grin off his smarmy face and walk back to the car withLevi by my side.
My chest is heavy with the weight of unanswered questions, but deep down, I know this isn’t over. Iwillfind out what Tanner Crawley did to my sister, and hewillpay.
I spendthe rest of Friday poring over the police report Ryan gave us. After we returned home from Rafters Falls, Levi and I swung past Mum and Paul’s to see if we could find anything with Zara’s handwriting to send off for analysis. I couldn’t bring myself to set foot in her bedroom, but we managed to find a note she’d scrawled for Mum in a pile of papers on the kitchen bench.
We passed it on to Paige’s dad and he drove it down to his brother for us. Now, I’m searching for anything else we might have missed. Anything that might seem insignificant. But there’s fuck all in this report. To the Barrenridge Police, this was a cut and dry murder-suicide case.
Something keeps niggling at the back of my mind, though. According to the report, Paul was murdered first, his throat slit by the same machete found buried in my sister’s stomach. Besides wondering how the hell Zara is supposed to have come into possession of a machete, what doesn’t make sense is how she took him by surprise. She is …wasfive foot four, and she’d be lucky to weigh sixty kilos on a good day. Paul was easily five foot nine, and while he kept himself fit enough managing the property, he still had at least forty kilos on her. He had no drugs in his system according to the toxicology reports, so why wasn’t he able to overpower her?
Levi walks into the kitchen in red and black sports gear—the colours of the Barrenridge High Red Backs—spinning a basketballon his finger. “Anything jumping out?” he asks, placing the ball on the counter as he grabs a glass and fills it with water.
I toss the folder back on the table and lean back in my chair, arching my back with a small groan. “Maybe.”
He raises a questioning brow as he gulps down the water.
“Paul’s not a small man. Taking Zara out of the equation, because we know she didn’t do it, how does someone overpower him without him, one, fighting back, and two, alerting Mum, Zara,andRylan?” I sigh, massaging my temples. “It’s not adding up. Neither Mum nor Zara would risk Rylan’s life. They’d make him run or hide orsomething. But the way the crime scene plays out, no one put up a fight.”
Frowning, Levi drums his fingers on the ball. “You think there was more than one person involved? There were no signs of a struggle. Do you think it was an ambush?”
“It’s possible.” I rub a hand over my face, thinking it over. “Solomon has any number of people who would willingly do his dirty work for him. But something still feels off. The report says they were all killed by the same weapon. If there were more than one person, wouldn’t there be more murder weapons? But if it really was only one person, then how did no one hear anything? Why didn’t they try to get away?”
His expression turns thoughtful. “You think Solomon set the whole scene up to make it look like Paul didn’t put up a fight? To make it look like it was all Zara’s doing?”
A frustrated sigh escapes my lips as I stare down at the evidence in front of me. “I don’t know. It sounds ridiculous, but like I said, nothing makes sense. Even if it was Zara, Mum wouldn’t cower in the living room with Rylan while her daughter murdered her husband in cold blood.”
“You’ve been going over the report for days. Why don’t you take a break and come to the game this afternoon? The boyswould get a kick out of having a homegrown NBA superstar come to watch them. We can sit down with fresh eyes tomorrow.”
