Page 75 of A Killing Cold

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Connor says. “Why would he do that? It was probably Trevor. Being an ass, like always.”

He’s still rubbing my hands between his. They prickle, pins and needles as feeling returns.

“I saw a photo of you,” he says, without looking up. “I was at Harper’s show. We’d never met—it was a friend-of-a-friend thing. I was on a date, actually.” He gives a low laugh. “A bad one. I saw the photo of you, and I saw the tattoo. It reminded me of the other cabin—Dragonfly. Dad picked the name for it, you know. He bought the ornament for the door. It reminded me of him. It made me think of…” He lets out a breath and bends his head over my hands, resting his brow against my knuckles. Then he looks up, meeting my eyes. “I don’t really know how to describe it. The way things were when he died, they were… complicated. I’ve never been able to be angry with him like everyone else was. When I saw that photo, saw the tattoo—saw you—I felt like it was somehow a sign. That’s why I asked Harper to introduce us.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you pretend to be her friend?” I ask.

He makes a sound of dark amusement. “Because I didn’t think ‘Hey, you make me think about my cheating dad and I find that weirdly compelling’ was a great pickup line.”

I choke. “Yeah, I can see that,” I allow.

“I told myself it was fate. Which I guess is a fancy way of saying a coincidence with staying power,” he says. He rises, moving to sit next to me on the couch. He settles so that he’s not quite touching me, both of us facing in the same direction. “I’m sorry. I should have told you right away. I shouldn’t have lied.”

I look over at him. His face is open and vulnerable, those blue eyes bright. But a confession doesn’t mean much when you’ve already been caught.

“Those photos. In Alexis’s room,” I say. “You said they were of Kayla.”

He doesn’t answer, guilt flashing briefly over his features. I unzip my coat. The photo I stole is still there, pressed against my body, its edges curved by the shape of my ribs. I set it on the coffee table between us, and his fingertips graze the edge.

“That’s not Kayla,” I say. “It’s Mallory Cahill.”

“How do you know that?” he asks, his voice rough. “How do you know her name?”

“Did your father do that to her?” I ask.

His breath hisses between his teeth. “No. He wouldn’t.”

“Then why—”

“Alexis found them at the house. In some of Dad’s old things,” Connor says. “She wanted to know the same thing. Did I think Dad did it. But he wouldn’t.”

“Is he really the person you thought you knew? He stashed a woman here,” I point out. “Did he ever hit your mother? Or you?” I ask.

His head whips toward me, fury in his eyes. “No. Never,” he says. “And he wouldn’t have hurt Mallory, either.”

“Then where did those photos come from?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I have no idea. He was cheating on my mother, okay. That’s awful. But he wasn’t violent.”

“Okay,” I say quietly, relenting. He looks back at the photograph. He picks it up, eyes lingering on each bruise.

“I met her once, you know,” he says. “Mallory. My father drove me up here. He didn’t tell me—he just said she was a friend. I mostly remember the little girl. We were almost the same age. Spent the afternoon playing together. It was a fun day.”

“Same age?” I echo.

“I mean, not really. I was seven. She was five,” he says.

“Are you sure?”

He gives me an odd look. “Yeah, actually. You know kids at that age. They make a big deal out of it. She found out my birthday was exactlya week before hers, so she kept telling me, like, ‘When you’re twelve, I’ll be ten. When you’re seventeen, I’ll be fifteen.’ And she’d make up the things we’d do together. It was actually… really sweet.”

Two years and one week. And all of a sudden, I know my birthday. I’m a year older than I thought. I sit back in the chair. Connor is still watching me.

“I don’t think he planned to bring me up there,” he says. There’s a touch of defensiveness in his voice. “Mom was sick. He got stuck with me for the day unexpectedly. I had no idea why they were here.”

The feeling of spinning comes back to me, the touch of snowflakes on my tongue. The boy who laughed and grabbed my hand, pulling me along.Let’s go.

The image morphs. The antlered man, hand on my wrist, those same words echoing, anger in his voice—or—

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