Page 61 of Into These Eyes
“If you turn right out of here, the road runs alongside the golf course.”
I stare at him, my mind racing with possibilities. “Golf course?”
“Does that mean something?”
“You might have just solved how my father did it.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense.”
I explain that the house we shared a back fence with sat across the road from the golf course. On the outside of this estate. My father could easily have left home on foot when I was giving Anika a bath, snuck through that neighbour’s yard and then the golf course.
Gavin runs a hand over his face, the relief sweeping over his expression unmistakable. “The missing piece of the puzzle.”
“Yes, but—” I stop cold, realising what he’s telling me. “You … you thought my father … before I told you it was him?”
He grips the back of his neck. “Yes and no. I had a hell of a lot of time on my hands to run through every scenario. Obviously, I knew I didn’t do it.” He shakes his head and gazes into the distance. “The rage I felt when I discovered my father’d been cheating on my mother … well, I imagine that's nothing compared to a spouse finding out his wife’s cheating on him.”
I swallow over the tightness in my throat. He’s right. The spouse is usually the most obvious suspect. For sixteen years, Gavin’s been tormented by that fact. A fact the police didn’t bother looking into at the time. Because of me.
“Or,” I say, guilt churning that hamburger in my stomach, “they didn’t look into it because they relied on the alibi I gave them. The false statement I made.”
Gavin’s eyes lock with mine and he steps forward, placing his hands on my shoulders. “Even if you’d told them hewasn’thome, do you think they’d have cared? They were convinced they had their man. Don’t you see? If they were interested in looking for other suspects, Reid never would have buried Liam’s eyewitness statement. Donotblame yourself, Jamie.”
I stare up at him, wishing I could stop the guilt from crushing me. “But, I—”
“It wasn’t a false statement. It’s what you believed to be the truth.”
Just like I believed his guilt was the truth. Jesus. I don’t care what I have to do, I need to set this right for him.
“Tell me you understand, Jamie. What happened to me was Reid’s doing, not yours, Okay?”
One of his thumbs rubs over my clavicle, and when it accidentally brushes my bare skin where the neckline of my dress ends, a delicious shiver skates through my nervous system. Trying to ignore it, I realise he’s right again. I’d told the truth as I knew it. It was their responsibility to test that truth, and they never did. Slowly, I nod.
I know he’s assessing my reaction, checking for signs that I’m lying, or about to fall apart.
Apparently satisfied, he releases me and steps back. “Should we go knock on Liam’s door?”
After discovering the house has been sold several times since Gavin’s incarceration, leaving the new owner with no knowledge of who once lived there, we head back toward the car.
“When I’m back in the office, I’ll do a historical title search,” I tell him. “That way we can track Liam’s parents down, then find him.”
As we draw closer to my car, Gavin’s pace slows until he comes to a complete stop in front of the house where he told me to park.
“This is where I grew up,” he says, a strain in his tone I haven’t heard before. Stepping a little too close to him, our arms brush while I study the house. Ignoring the foreign sparks scattering through my body, I concentrate on the only home he’s ever known.
“Do any of your family still live here?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. I lost my mother a month before … you lost yours. And I lost my father that night.”
I take in a sharp breath. “What do you mean you lost your father?” He closes his eyes and swallows hard. I knew that he’dassaulted his father that night, knew his father testified against him. But he wouldn’t have had a choice.
“I didn’t know it until the next day,” he says, staring straight ahead at the house again. “Didn’t believe it until the next week. He thought I killed her too. I haven’t seen or heard from him since he testified.”
My own throat tightens painfully, his words bringing up everything I’m trying to suppress. I can’t help but wonder how painful losing his father in that way must have been. At least comparable to my mother’s death, if not worse. Mum didn’t decide to get murdered. Gavin’s father made a deliberate choice to cut his only son out of his life.
The damage my own father has done to this man is almost unbearable. Before I know it, I’m blinking fast again, tamping down on all that emotion bubbling under the surface. That’s when he chooses to finally look at me.
“Don’t fight it, Jamie.”
