Page 60 of All for her Forgiveness

“Did you notice the date?” Odin asks.

“Yes. The day after her birthday.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have any idea why she did it? What changed? She saw you as an older brother and suddenly desired you as a man?”

“Since she was fifteen, I noticed she looked at me differently. I never reciprocated or encouraged her. In fact, I started seeing her less and less. I helped her from a distance. I paid the bills, and we rarely talked on the phone. I knew through Vina that she was doing well.”

He nods in understanding. “Did she ever try anything more?”

“No. She made insinuations, but nothing very direct, except for one time when she asked me for a kiss. Pam became a spoiled girl. I thought it was just a personality trait, a temporary teenage behavioral change, but this here”—I point to the screen—“is a character flaw. What did she expect? To seduce me?”

“Exactly that. Or get pregnant to force you to marry her. If this drug is what I’m thinking it is, a new one on the market, it removes any inhibitions. It’s not like the rape drug, where the person is conscious but unable to react and is at the mercy of the abuser. It’s more functional, releasing one’s deepest desires.”

“And where did she get the idea that I desired her? For there to be a deep desire within me, there had to be desire in the first place, and I never felt that for Pam.”

“But you wouldn’t have been in your normal state, Hades. God knows what that—” He pauses for a moment. “I can’t pretend anymore, so here it goes: God knows what that wretched girl had planned? Maybe she thought that mixing the drug with alcohol would make you give in, cousin. The fact is, Pam drugged you. There’s no longer any doubt; it’s a certainty. What I’m still trying to understand is why she did it on that particular occasion. Right after her birthday.”

I think about what he’s saying and also about the conversation I had with Pam at the club, the only time she, Kennedy, and I were in the same location.

‘Why isn’t Kennedy with you?’

‘Why do you call her Kennedy? I think she prefers Juliet.’

‘It’s her name.’

‘Regarding your question, Juliet is having fun with her boyfriend.’

‘Boyfriend?’

‘Yes. Ryan Corey III. She dressed up for him today. Spent the whole day talking about how excited she was about Ryan's interest in her. I think...’

‘What?’

‘Juliet is dazzled because he’s rich, and I’m afraid she’ll get hurt. Ryan doesn’t usually take girls seriously, especially someone like her, poor and without any life goals.’

‘No life goals? What the hell are you talking about? Your grandmother told me Kennedy wants to go back to school.’

‘I doubt it. She disappears every afternoon, and I think she’s at Ryan’s place . . .um . . .doing things that a girl does with her boyfriend.’

“Pam started seeing Kennedy as a rival,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“She came to talk to me at the club and told me things about Kennedy that were completely contrary to how she seemed to adore her when she said on the phone in the first few days that she saw her as the sister she never had. Gradually, she started speaking ill of her.”

“The supposed boyfriend, Ryan, the bastard who?—”

“I don’t think that bastard had any involvement with Kennedy after all. When I confronted her, she denied it. I only had Pam’s word about this supposed relationship and the fact that I saw them dancing once and him touching her.”

“If what we’re thinking is true, you were standing next to a snake ready to strike and you didn’t even realize it, Hades. While you saw Pam as the child you’d promised to protect, the violated girl who’d suffered when she didn’t know how to defend herself, she transformed without you seeing it coming. Pam didn’t want you as a brother. It wasn’t a crush she had on you. She had a plan, and based on what you just watched, nothing would have stopped her.”

I squeeze the phone in my hand, my mind processing this nightmare.

But it’s not Pam I see. It’s Kennedy.

Without memory, God knows what she went through that night Pam was killed.

“I’m going to get him,” I swear. “I don’t know everything that happened in Cape Cod yet, but I have enough information to reach a conclusion. Kennedy never dated Ryan. Pam probably did. I had promised her a trip to Europe for her next vacation, but she asked me to let her go to Cape Cod. There are still many gaps to be filled, but now I think everything was part of a plan. I don’t know what kind, but I suspect they wanted to do something with Kennedy, maybe make me catch her with Ryan, and things got out of control.” I feel acid corrode my stomach.

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