Page 29 of From the Darkness

When he didn’t answer, her stomach knotted. “Don’t you trust me?” she whispered.

“I can’t trust anyone.” He answered, and this time his voice was harsh and grating.

All the questions bottled up inside her burst out. “Oh, Lord, Troy. What happened? What’s wrong? Nola told me you’re supposed to be locked in here. Is that true? Or is she lying to cover something up? And if you’re not locked in, are you using another secret passage? Please—you have to tell me.”

Again, she tried to turn so that she was facing him. But he only clamped his fingers more tightly onto her shoulders, pulling her back so that her body rested firmly against his.

“We can talk here,” he said. “Like this.”

Talk, she thought, trying not to focus on the sensation he was creating. He was warm and solid and strong. The man she remembered from their summer together. He’d been clever then. He was clever now. He knew exactly how to distract her, but she wasn’t going to let him get away with it. “Answer my questions. Did they lock you in your room?”

He gave a short laugh. “Yeah, I heard that story. It’s a lie.”

The assurance buoyed her. He wasn’t locked in here. Yet what about the rest of it? “But you’re in trouble. Financial trouble? Or something worse?” she pressed.

There was a long hesitation, during which every muscle in her body tensed.

“Something worse,” he finally answered.

When he didn’t elaborate, she almost screamed, “You have to tell me!”

He made a strangled sound, then answered. “Okay. I killed Grace.”

Bree gasped. “Oh no, Troy. That can’t be true.”

“I killed Grace,” he said again, as though the memory had just surfaced in his mind, and he was trying to decide what to do with it.

“No!” she repeated. “You loved your wife.”

“Did I?”

“Helen told me how happy you were.”

“Then Helen was mistaken. Grace and I had problems from the start.”

She struggled to process what he was saying, even as she tried to twist out of his arms, but he held her where she was.

In a shaky voice, she asked, “If you didn’t love her, why did you marry her?”

“I got her pregnant.”

“Oh—” The one clipped syllable was all she could manage.

“And then I killed her.”

“How?”

“In the car.”

“You mean an accident?”

He dragged in a breath and let it out. “Technically.”

“Then . . “

Ruthlessly, he cut her off. “We were having one of our fights. At the end, we were fighting all the time—about how much money she was spending on the house. I told her we had to cut back, or she’d bankrupt us, and she just kept pouring on the money—maybe because the house had become a symbol to her.” He stopped and heaved a sigh. “I can’t always remember that night. Sometimes it goes away and leaves me alone.”

He wouldn’t permit her to turn and fold him close. All she could do was reach back and close her hands gently over his forearms, silently lending him her strength. He bent his head, pressed his cheek against her hair.

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