Page 76 of Five Days

But I tried to lighten Landon’s shit mood, hoping Zack would come to his senses and get in touch with us somehow.

Was his no longer being on Elite’s website evidence that he was taking some time to figure his heart out?

I jotted down Sean’s number, expecting calling him would only lead to a dead end. What employer would give out personal information about their workers?

Needing a glass of wine before attempting to get what I wanted, I ambled into the kitchen.

Landon lay where I’d left him an hour earlier, curled on the couch again and focused on the muted TV. He’d been stuck in waiting mode, sure that his “wild lifestyle” would once more make it onto the major new outlets.

It wasn’t Landon’s face on screen that pulled me up short and stole my breath with a loud wheeze.

I recognized the blonde woman, even though over a decade had passed since I’d last seen her sitting on the opposite side of a courtroom, bracketed by her haughty, rich parents.

Shannon Taylor.

The young woman my brother had sexually assaulted had overdosed, according to the story’s banner beneath the newscaster.

“Turn it up,” I rasped, barely recognizing my voice as I perched on the edge of the couch beside Landon’s feet.

He clicked the remote, filling the room with what remained of the story.

It was suggested that the news of my brother’s early release in the next couple of weeks had reached her, prompting her to take her own life rather than dealing with the truth he would once more be walking the streets. According to her parents, she’d never fully recovered from the attack and had been in and out of mental institutions.

She’d not only been hurt by my brother but by me for not speaking up. For not better holding control over his waywardness. And for not reaching out to the authorities when he had become more than I could handle on my own.

And now two parents suffered the loss of their only child.

Nausea stirred in my stomach.

“Jesus,” I choked, leaning forward onto my knees, hands clasped between them to keep from shaking.

“Cal?” Landon stirred, sitting up to wrap his arms around my waist.

I didn’t move except for a harsh swallow against the thickening in my throat.

“What’s going on? Who was she?”

“A casualty of my greatest mistake,” I muttered, my heart breaking.

“You told me not keeping your brother in line was your deepest regret.”

“Yeah, this is about him.” I heaved an exhale. “I was so ashamed—needed to atone for my mistakes with him. And now this…” I waved a hand at the TV, swallowing hard.

Landon glanced at the screen, his shoulders wilting as though he’d already connected the dots. “Let me be the one to offer comfort for a change.”

“The full story’s not pretty,” I warned in a choked whisper.

“Wrong choices rarely are.”

I spilled. Every agonizing word about my mom’s death two years after our dad’s that had left me responsible for my younger brother when I’d not yet been twenty-one. With every admission, my guilt lessened, Landon listening without a hint of judgment in his eyes.

“He was ten times the handful you claim to have been,” I murmured.

“Gay?” Landon asked.

“Bi, I believe. He brought home guys on occasion, but it was mostly girls. I attempted to ban the influx of his fuck buddies, but he never listened. He lashed out at me in his grief over losing first Dad to a heart attack then Mom to breast cancer, and I had to hide my own sorrow. Be the strong, sturdy parental figure I hoped he would eventually cling to.

“He started doing drugs to escape reality rather than letting me help. He drank to excess too. I returned from work a couple nights to find him passed out on the floor, but rather than putting him in some sort of detox, I strove to save him on my own. Prove myself worthy of Mom’s trust in me to care for him, exactly as I’d promised to do when she lay on her deathbed. Getting the authorities involved would have been a better choice.” I admitted aloud the truth that had haunted me for over a decade.

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