Page 51 of The Missing Half

“Sandy. Hi.”

“What’re you doing here?” she asks, her voice bright.

My eyes rove around the yard as my mind races to come up with some logical excuse for barging in on their vacation like this. And that’s when I see Brad. Standing by an open grill with an apron wrapped around his waist and a spatula in his hand. He’s nodding along to something the man across from him is saying, and when he smiles, something cracks open inside me, leaking out a bitter blackness, a malignant tar of rage. Suddenly, everything else is swept from my mind. I no longer care about Sandy or embarrassing Brad in front of his family. All I care about is Kasey and finally getting the truth.

“I’m here to talk to Brad,” I say. Without waiting for a reaction, I stride toward him, leaving Sandy frozen in my wake. Heads turn in my direction, the collective gaze of the Andrews family heating my skin, but I don’t care. When I’m about ten feet away, Brad’s eyes catch mine over the other man’s shoulder, and his smile drops. He opens his mouth, but I don’t want to hear his voice.

“Kasey was here that night,” I spit at him, my words trembling and loud. The man Brad was talking to turns to look at me and instinctively slinks to the side. I pull the receipt from my pocket, wave it in Brad’s direction. “I have fucking proof.”

He lifts his hands. “Nic—”

“Don’t,” I snap. “Don’t lie to me.”

“Hang on—”

“What did you do to her?” I shout, my eyes stinging with tears. “What did you do to my sister?”

Suddenly, Brad’s hand is around my upper arm, his fingers so tight and unexpected that my voice cuts out. He’s never touched me like this before, and Jenna’s warning from last night flashes in my mind:We don’t know what he’s capable of.“This isn’t the place, Nic,” he says, and although he mutters the words beneath his breath, they are hard as steel. He isn’t going to let me speak his secret here in front of his wife and family. He won’t allow it. “Let’s go inside, then we can talk.”

I want to tell him I don’t give a shit about the setting in which we have this conversation, but yet again, when it counts, all I can do is freeze.

Brad turns to face the yard of people, which is split between those watching us openly and those pretending not to. “Sorry, everyone,” he says loudly. He’s positioned my body slightly in front of his own so no one can see his grip on my arm. “This is just a misunderstanding. We’re taking care of it inside. You good to take over the burgers, Larry?” He glances at the man he was talking to earlier, who nods and reaches out to take the spatula from Brad’s outstretched hand. “Now, please, get drunk and try to forget any of this happened!”

Halting laughter breaks out over the yard, people slowly turn back to their conversations, and the kids’ game of tag starts again.Brad steers me toward the house, and as he does, I spot Sandy standing alone in the middle of the yard, watching us with an unreadable expression on her face.

It’s only when we’re both inside and the door has closed behind us that I finally find my voice again. “That hurts,” I say.

For a fleeting moment, Brad frowns down at me as if he doesn’t understand. Then he looks at my arm and lets go, as if he suddenly realized he was touching a flame. “I’m sorry,” he says, and to my surprise, he actually looks it. It unnerves me—the quiet normalcy after the burst of violence. “But you shouldn’t have barged in like that—”

He’s interrupted by the sound of the doorknob twisting, and we turn to see Sandy slipping through the doorway.

“Sandy.” His eyes go round with fear. He wants his wife nowhere near me right now, and about this we can agree. I was reckless outside, but it is Brad I want to hurt, not her. And while the force of his grip may have scared me, there’s nothing he can do to me here, not with his entire family outside the door. “I’ve got this,” he says. “Don’t worry. Go back outside.”

“No.” Sandy’s voice is cool. “We need to deal with this quickly and quietly.”

Brad walks over to her, one hand reaching for the doorknob, the other ushering her out. “It’s just a misunderstanding, hon. Like I said. Nic and I can hash this out together.”

“It’s true,” I say. “I’m sorry for showing up like that. I was just…I just need to talk to Brad.”

“I wish that were the case,” Sandy says. “But it’s not.”

I don’t understand what she means, and by the look on Brad’s face, he doesn’t either, but he just continues to guide her toward the doorway. “I’ll be back out in a minute. I promise—”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Sandy suddenly shouts, her voice reverberating around the little house. “Would the two of you just let me speak? Kasey didn’t meet up with Brad here the night she went missing. I was the one she came to see.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

For a moment, all I can do is stare at Sandy. Her confession is so unexpected, I think I must have misunderstood it.

“W-what do you mean?” I finally say, looking from her to Brad. I assumed he would be the only one who could answer my questions, but he looks almost as confused as I am, gaping at his wife with panicked anticipation.

“Can I see that?” Sandy says.

At first, I have no idea what she’s talking about. Then she nods at my hand, and I look down to see the receipt I’d been waving in Brad’s face. I’d forgotten I was holding it. Without thinking, I pass it to her. As she studies the handwritten address on the back, I suddenly realize that I’ve given her the one piece of evidence that places my sister here on the night of her disappearance, something Sandy would no doubt want torn to shreds. Just as I’m about to snatch it back though, she hands it to me.

“Like I said, I’m the one who saw Kasey that night. That handwriting is mine.”

My body stills as a lifetime of affection curdles to anger inside me.

---