Page 21 of The Tower

But the kitchen seems to be well equipped with everything one could ask for. I could tell when he was gathering the ingredients for our sandwiches. The fridge and the cabinets were well stocked, ready to feed an entire family for days. This really seems like a secret getaway place; a house that no one lived in but was ready to shelter anyone in need.

Maybe he lied. Maybe this house used to belong to one of his victims, and he just declared it his own?

There's no way of knowing, really.

I turn to him, politely waiting until he's taken his last bite before I probe. "So?"

He returns my look, still chewing and taking his sweet time before deigning me with a response.

"I can't tell you who I work for," he begins. "But I can tell you that our mission that night was to eradicate the Abbott family, which meant killing your uncle and aunt, and three of their business associates."

I suck in a sharp breath of air as a cold shower of shock prickles down my spine. "And me? My last name is Abbott. I must have been on that list, too."

He shakes his head. "No, you weren't, which is why you're still alive."

"But why not?"

"Because no one knew you existed," he says, his eyes locking onto mine as a shadow of annoyance crosses his face. "We've never been lazy when it comes to research, but for some reason, your existence was a well-hidden secret."

After an ominous pause, he asks, "Care to tell me why that is?"

I bite my lower lip, trying to hold his gaze as I try to gather the right words.

It's been so long since I've had to face one of the darkest chapters of my young life. The one that changed everything for me.

The one chapter that possibly saved my life.

Chapter 12

Keane

My last name is Abbott.

She could not have found a better way to show me how fragile and distant the relationship with her family is. She phrased it in such a removed way, almost cold.

She barely shed a tear over the death of her aunt, and she doesn't seem to be concerned about her uncle at all even though it must be obvious to her that we're still after him.

This girl obviously doesn't have the best relationship with her family, which begins to explain why the Covey didn't know about her.

She looks sad and frightened, curling up on the sofa next to me as if to shield herself from pain. But there's no protecting herself as the pain comes within.

"Tell me," I push her. "What's your secret?"

She doesn't look at me but rounds her back even farther. The clothes I gave her are men's clothes and way too big for her small frame. The hoodie hangs loosely around her narrow shoulders, hiding the splint that stabilizes her shoulder.

Just as I'm beginning to think she has no intentions of responding to my inquiry, she lets out a deep sigh and straightens her back, a visible display of someone who's preparing herself to give voice to an ugly truth.

"I wasn't exactly what my family expected me to be," she starts vaguely. "I didn't fit in with the picture-perfect Abbott heritage, so they hid me, sent me off to boarding school when I'd just started high school."

Picture-perfect Abbott heritage?

Oh, naïve little Libby. She appears to be one of those poor souls who was kept in the dark about the Abbotts' true endeavors. I've often heard that they were so good at keeping their public image clean that even some of their own family members weren't aware of the criminal wheelings and dealings growing the family's wealth. Corruption, fraud, and even complicity to murder—the Abbotts have been involved in all this if there was financial gain.

Even Abbott Tower was a product of their dark handlings. The commission was given to a company that's known for their continuing tax fraud, but their CEO is good friends with Clyde Abbott, who, in return for getting them this commission from the city, not only got his name plastered on one of the most prestigious buildings in town but also took away a much-needed cash injection from a local hospital.

Of course, no one knows about this. And in line with all the other things the Abbott empire has been involved in for decades, this was just a minor deception that may have been morally wrong and partly illegal, but at least not as deadly as their association with the local mafia. People have been killed in the Abbott name because they were in the way of their business, and they didn't care who these people were. Men, women, criminal, innocent civilian—it never mattered to them.

The Covey may not be much better, but at least we fucking own our evil and don't pretend to be something we're not.

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