Page 36 of Twisted Empire

10

Tatum

Elias puta hand over my mouth before I could scream again, and then he pulled me into his arms, trying to shield me from the terrible sight. “No,” he said in a strangled mutter. “No fucking way….”

Wild thoughts accelerated in my head as I tried to comprehend what had happened here. My breaths came in gasps and I felt like I’d black out. The whole beach seemed to spin around us.

I finally pulled away from Elias and looked back at Henry, my eyes glazed with a layer of tears. As I blinked, they dripped from my eyelids and slid down my cheeks. I bit my lip tightly in an attempt to muffle the sobs which threatened to escape my mouth.

“What happened to him?” I asked, the words coming out in a choked murmur.

Elias crouched near his old friend. “Bullet in the head,” he said, clenching his jaw.

I moved closer, stomach lurching as I took in every detail of Henry’s stiff form. His dark hair was matted with blood. Some was trickling out of his right ear, too. A black pistol sat on the sand next to him, his hand curled around the grip as if he’d just pulled the trigger only seconds ago.

A rock weighed down a piece of paper only a couple of feet away. I gingerly picked it up, scanned it, and handed it to Elias. “Is this his handwriting?” I asked, my voice close to cracking again.

Elias read the note and nodded briefly. “Yes.”

The note was brief, stating that Henry simply ‘couldn’t do it’ anymore, and that he wanted his family to forgive him for all the trouble he’d caused.

“Why would he kill himself like this, right here?” I said, shaking my head in bewilderment. “Did he want us to find him?”

“This wasn’t a suicide, Doll. The society murdered him,” Elias replied stiffly.

“What?” My eyes widened. “You think they figured out he was trying to help us and killed him?”

“I don’t think. I know. Henry might’ve written that note, but I bet they made him do it. There’s no way he shot himself.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He narrowed his eyes. “He was left-handed, but the entry wound is on the right side of his head, and the gun is in his right hand too. I guess it’s possible he used that hand to do it, but really fucking unlikely. Why would he?”

One hand went over my mouth. “Oh my god,” I murmured.

“Guess they forgot to account for that,” Elias went on, his voice low and bitter. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? The cops here will speed through the investigation and totally ignore the evidence. Most of them are in the society’s pocket. It’ll be ruled a suicide right away.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, touching my hand to his arm. “He didn’t deserve this.”

Elias simply stared at the body without replying. I kept my hand on his arm, my heart breaking for him. For Henry, too. He was only trying to help us, and he’d paid the ultimate price.

Suddenly my throat felt like it was closing up. “Oh, shit,” I managed to choke out, my eyes snapping around in every direction. “What if the guys who killed him are still here?”

Elias looked at me, eyes flat and miserable. “Don’t worry. It’s only us.”

“But if they figured out Henry was coming here to help us, wouldn’t they wait for us to arrive so they could get us too?”

He nodded. “They probably did, but we were almost an hour late. I’ll bet they eventually figured we got spooked and decided not to show up. Guess we should thank our lucky stars for the flat tire and all that fucking traffic.”

My knees went weak, and I swayed and almost collapsed on the sand as I realized what a narrow escape we’d had. If we hadn’t encountered all that so-called bad luck and arrived here on time, we could be dead right now, just like Henry.

“We should probably get out of here just in case they decide to come back and double-check,” Elias went on, holding me steady with one strong arm.

“What about Henry?” I asked, my eyes welling with tears again. “We can’t just leave his body here.”

“We have to,” he said quietly. “But we’ll use one of the burners to call 911 and report this anonymously. That way he won’t be sitting out here too much longer.”

I wiped my cheeks as tears slid down them. “Okay,” I whispered, barely able to get the word out. I crouched down by Henry and tried to close his eyes, figuring it was the least I could do before we left him here, but his face was cold and his eyelids wouldn’t budge.

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