Page 61 of Proof

“JJ, I need you to listen to me,” Sully said, his voice firm. “It wasn’t your?—”

“Fault?” I asked incredulously. “It wasn’t my fault?” I said as loudly as my sore throat would let me. “That little girl, her mother, the agent?—”

“There was no way you could have known what would happen, JJ.”

My brother’s words had no effect on me whatsoever. They changed nothing. Three people were dead—an innocent little girl was dead—because of me. Because I’d done something to someone, or I’d seen something…

The water I’d taken a few sips of all came back up. My knees buckled and my body folded in on itself until I was crouched on the floor. Sobs of anguish, regret, and guilt consumed me even as my body continued to try and expel something that was no longer there. I heard my name being called, but I didn’t go to it. I didn’t want to.

I wanted to go back to the place I’d been for so long. The place I’d told Cass he should have left me in. The place where I was safe. The place where it was quiet. The place where I’d been able to live my life however I wanted.

I wanted to go back to the lie.

CHAPTER 19

Cass

“Mr. Ashby,” the man who opened the door said as he motioned for me to enter the house. I figured he’d been expecting me since I’d had to check in with Owen, the guard who’d been working for the Ashbys for as long as I could remember. He was in charge of who got past the heavy iron gate that kept what my father had always called riffraff from entering the sacred Ashby family compound.

It had ended up taking more than ten minutes before Owen had gotten the okay to let me in. He’d even insisted on scanning my ID before letting me past. He’d blamed the whole thing on red tape, but I hadn’t cared because that open gate meant I at least had a chance to be reunited with the only Ashby who’d ever truly loved me.

The mansion had looked exactly like it had from the first time I’d seen it through the lens of a fifteen-year-old kid who’d finally come to understand that the people outside my world weren’t riffraff at all.

After handing the keys to my Mustang over to a valet who’d seemed to appear out of nowhere, I’d walked up the wide frontsteps that had huge marble lions sitting outside the doors as if they were truly there to guard it.

The door had opened before I’d had to knock.

“Renly,” I said in reply to his greeting.

The butler had been with the Ashby family for as long as I could remember. He was a good deal younger than my grandmother, but his manner of speaking and grace while he worked solidified his commitment to his job and the people he served. As a child, I’d always wondered if Renly was his first or last name, but I’d never dared to ask him. Even though he wasn’t an Ashby, he’d become one of my grandmother’s closest confidants after my grandfather had passed away and he was always tight-lipped when it came to the family, my grandmother especially.

“Please do come in,” Renly said with a graceful motion of his arm. As always, he was impeccably dressed and well groomed. I hadn’t seen much of him since I’d joined the military when I’d turned eighteen, but he looked pretty much exactly the same as he always had. His hair was a little grayer in spots and a few more wrinkles lined his face, but at fifty years old and single, he was the epitome of what some would call a catch.

“Your grandmother is in the garden,” Renly said with a slight nod. The Ashbys were in no way officially royal, but he often dipped his head to show his respect. He’d withheld the gesture from most of the Ashbys, though.

Stepping into the house was like stepping back in time; just not the time I would have liked. Despite wanting to focus on the good things that had happened in that house as my grandmother had raised me, the bad things always had a way of taking up the majority of real estate in my brain.

Although I hadn’t seen much of my father as I’d been growing up, the times Ihadseen him were ones I’d wished I hadn’t.

It had been my grandmother who’d read me bedtime stories, scolded me for running over the gleaming marble floors with dirty shoes, bought me toys, made each holiday special, and everything else that had come with raising a rambunctious child.

Since I hadn’t known the truth about how my grandfather had treated my grandmother until after he’d died, I’d always considered myself lucky when I’d gotten to spend some time with him during the last few years of his life. He’d been the one who’d take me to the cabin in the mountains nearly every weekend. He’d always been happy to arrive at the small and very un-Ashby-like residence, but he’d also carried a mantle of sadness with him that I’d never been able to draw him out of, no matter how hard I’d tried. To this day, I still hadn’t been able to figure out why a place he’d clearly loved had also brought him such sadness.

Memories consumed me as I followed Renly to the back of the spotless mansion. Expensive artwork hung on the walls and the decor still had the timeless beauty that came from a mix of modern and antique furniture and fixtures. Not much had changed, though I hadn’t really expected it to. Even when I’d been little, my grandmother had always refused any recommendations from various family members to move things around or replace outdated furniture. Instead, she’d made sure that every inch of the house had been scrubbed, buffed, and polished so that the floors and furniture all gleamed.

Strangely enough, it didn’t feel warm to me now. There was no sensation of coming home after all the years I’d been gone. Nothing about the house felt like I belonged there. It wasn’t home.

Not like Sully and JJ’s house.

The mere thought of JJ left me with a profound feeling of loss. It was greater than any feeling the gorgeous mansion and privileged life I’d once led could offer. Even the excitementabout seeing my grandmother for the first time in many years couldn’t compare to the pain of losing JJ.

I reminded myself that I’d see JJ again, even if it was from a distance. I’d been reminding myself of that from the moment I’d left the cabin and made the long walk to the highway which led to one of many tourist areas that dotted the roads leading in and out of Yosemite National Park. As much as I’d tried, I’d spent most of the hike thinking about the moment when JJ was finally safe, and I’d have to let him go for real. I had no fucking clue how I was going to be able to do it.

I’d seen him leave the cabin with the guy he’d been partnered with on the actress’s case. Since the satellite phone belonged to Sully’s company, it had made sense that the built-in GPS had shown the man exactly how to find us.

Letting JJ go had been one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life, but I’d known there was no other choice. I hadn’t bothered to call Sully to come get me because I’d felt too raw and exposed to deal with anyone. I’d figured the guy with JJ would let his boss know about picking up Sully’s kid brother in the middle of the night from the cabin that was supposed to have done only one thing.

Give JJ time to sift through all the information about my case, official and unofficial, so he could determine for himself what the truth really was.

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