“Just let me get my purse,” I tell the delivery guy.
I leave the door ajar. Putting the pizza on the coffee table, I grab my bag from the side of the sofa. I get my wallet out and open it up.
Huh. There’s no money in it.
I’m sure there was a twenty in here this morning. Like, ninety percent sure.
That is so weird.
Well, no time to think about it now. I put my purse back in my bag and call out Jack’s name.
I hear the water turn off, and then his deep voice says, “Yeah?”
“Pizza’s here, and I have no cash.”
“My wallet is on the kitchen counter. Should be some money in there.”
Thank God. Otherwise, one of us would have been making a quick dash to the nearest ATM.
I find Jack’s wallet where he said it would be. Flip it open and see a couple of tens in there.
Perfect.
I pull the cash out. Something drops out from in between them.
It flutters to the floor.
I peer down at it.
It’s a small piece of blank paper. About half the size of the bills in my hand.
I bend down and pick it up. I turn it over to see what, if anything, is on the other side.
It’s a section from a news article. Like the type people can print out from the computers at the library.
It takes me a moment before it registers in my brain who and what this article is about. And then it does, and my whole body freezes cold.
It’s about Tobias Ripley. Before the murders. When he was a senior in high school. Some award he won.
And there’s a picture accompanying the article.
I recognize Tobias’s mother standing beside him. I know her from his trial.
But it’s who is standing on the other side of Tobias with his arm around his shoulders that causes pain to slice across my stomach, where my scars are.
I feel like I’m back there that night.
But instead of it being Tobias who cut me, this time, it’s Jack.
And this feels so much worse than any pain Tobias ever inflicted on me.
Because that person smiling in the picture with his arm around Tobias’s shoulders is Jack.
My Jack.
I’m running on autopilot when I pay the pizza guy and close the door.
And I just stand here. Staring at nothing.
Jack knows Tobias.
I let this man inside my body. I cared for him … loved him.
And all that time … he knew … Tobias.
I stare down at the news clipping, still held in my hand.
Bile floods my mouth.
Jack … he …
I … have to understand this. How Jack knows him. And why he’s here. With me.
It’s obviously no coincidence. Meaning that he came here for me.
Why?
To kill me?
My heart beats staccato against my ribs.
No. Jack could have done that a hundred times over already. That is not the reason he’s here. He’s here for another reason.
But what?
I hear Jack moving around. His footsteps enter the living room.
“Pizza smells good,” he says from behind me. “Audrey? Why are you standing there, staring at the door?”
Slowly, I turn around.
The carefree, slightly confused look on his face morphs into something else. Concern. Worry.
“Audrey, what’s wrong?” It’s evident in his voice too.
I part my lips, but I can’t seem to get any words out. I feel like my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.
I look back down at the picture. It’s like I’m willing my brain to tell me that I have this wrong.
But I don’t.
He knows the man who tormented and tortured me.
“What’s that?” he asks.
I lift my eyes to his. He gestures to the paper in my hand.
There is nothing in his expression that gives anything away.
I swallow thickly. “It fell out of your wallet.”
He frowns. “It did?”
“How do you know Tobias Ripley, Jack?”
My words seem to slam into the room, taking all the color from Jack’s face with them.
“What are you talking about?” I hear the waver in his voice.
I try to control the sudden onslaught of rage that I feel inside of me.
My hand holding the photo trembles. “Tobias Ripley. How do you know him, Jack?”
“I don’t know—”
“Don’t fucking lie!” I yell. My quick anger breaks into the room, like Jack broke into my life.
I take a step forward and toss the paper with the picture of him and Tobias toward him.
Jack picks it up from the floor.
I step back, closer to the door. Needing a quick exit if this goes south.
Not that I think Jack would ever hurt me.
But then I never suspected that he knew Tobias.
So, there is that.
I watch him studying the picture. He takes a deep breath.
Every movement and sound seems incredibly pronounced in this moment.
His eyes lift back to mine. Still, there is nothing in them to tell me anything. Not a hint of emotion.
Just blank. Empty.
Kind of like both of our souls.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your wallet.”
“That’s not possible. I never put this—”
“I don’t care!” I yell. “What I care about is how you know Tobias Ripley! Why you’re in a photograph with him and his mother!”
The silence that ensues is heavy. Like a weighted blanket covering my body. But there is no comfort with this. Just the feeling of entrapment and suffocation.
Jack drags a hand through his hair.
He can’t seem to look at me. It’s telling because Jack usually can’t keep his eyes off me.
“I am going to ask one last time. How. Do. You. Know. Tobias. Ripley?”
Finally, those eyes I believed I loved look into mine.
“I know Tobias because he’s my … brother.”
In my life, I have been hit, tied up, and held against my will. Had my skin cut open with a knife.
And none of those compare to the pain that I’m feeling right now.
Tobias is Jack’s brother.
I am gutted.
Like my stomach has been cut wide open with a blunt knife and my insides are spilling out all over the floor.
I
