Page 90 of Wicked Minds
“How are you feeling today?” I watch her closely for any reaction but don’t get any. “It’s a beautiful day outside. Have you been out for a walk in the gardens?”
She remains silent and I settle myself into the chair for one ofthoseafternoons. I’ll take silence over her being terrified of me. Staring out across the lawn, I force myself to relax and just be in this moment with her. I know there won’t be all that many more, and I want to be fully engaged in as many of them as possible.
“I know what you did,” Gran eventually says, shaking me from my musings.
I turn to her with a frown, and she slowly twists to face me, her face a hard mask, even lined with numerous wrinkles.
“Gran?”
“I know what you did to that girl.”
“Gran, what are you talking about?” I ask, throat going dry.
“Maybe I couldn’t save her, but I did what I could to make certain you didn’t destroy her like you did my daughter.”
My mind reels, her words playing on repeat as I scramble to put together the pieces.
“You’re a monster,” she continues, eyes blazing with unfathomable hatred. “Someone had to put you down before you take another life.”
“Gran,” I rasp. “What did you do?”
This twisted grin that I have never seen on her pulls up the wrinkles on either side of her mouth as a vindictive gleam enters her eyes.
“You forget, Bertram, that this ismycompany. Do you think I had no idea what you were up to?”
I cringe at being called by my father’s name, even though I knew that’s who she thought I was. But then the pieces begin to fall into place—or at least, some of them.
“You gave the police what they needed to arrest him?”
She laughs, this brittle sort of noise that doesn’t belong to the Gran I know. “When Grayson called me, I marched down there with everything I had. I’d waited too long to do anything, and another innocent girl got hurt, though I refused to let the cycle continue.”
I gape at my Gran, attempting to figure out if what she’s telling me could be true. The cops showed up at the door after Riley went to them, and several days later, Dad was arrested forembezzlement. After they’d escorted him out the door in cuffs, I’d called the family lawyer… and then I’d placed a call to Gran.
I’d assumed they’d investigated my father and found something incriminating… but could Gran have provided them with everything they needed to make the arrest?
Not to mention what she said about Riley… because that’s the only person she could be referring to, except that would mean she believes Riley’s story.
I shake my head, which is pulsing with a headache. There’s too much to process to think about that. If what Gran is saying is true, then she’s the one ultimately responsible for putting my dad in prison. Does he know that? He can’t, he’d have said something if he had. I’ve always assumed that, like me, he placed the blame on Riley.
If I could find out the truth, though, it would prove that all of this isn’t just in Gran’s head. If she did send my dad to prison, she’d have had to have a good reason… it would mean there might be some basis to her claims about my mom.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Riley wasn’t lying… If Gran believed Dad did something to my Mom, then of course she’d believe Riley’s lie…
Except, a niggle of doubt has firmly taken root…
I need to find out what the hell happened four years ago.
I need answers.
And with my father possibly getting released, I need them now.
28
RILEY
On Sunday morning, Logan meets me outside my apartment before we head to Urban Haven, a cute cafe near campus that serves breakfast all day. I’ve walked past it numerous times but never wanted to waste money by coming in.
From the street, the cafe boasts large, steel-framed windows that allow natural light to flood through. A hand-painted sign is propped up on the sidewalk stating, “When life gives you lemons, give them back and tell them you want coffee,” with vibrant potted plants lining the doorway, adding a touch of greenery to the urban street.
