Page 29 of Duress
“What news?”
“That my dad is dead.” Bryce looks away from me as he spits out the words, laced with the kind of anger one has when they know they’ve lost their chance at something for good.
“Oh god, baby. I’m so sorry.” Fresh tears spring to my eyes. I wrap my arms around Bryce and pull him into a hug. I squeeze him, trying to give him some sort of comfort. I know he had hoped one day his dad would reach out and reconnect with him. He never gave up on that dream. Now it would never happen.
“He showed me the obituary. Dad died from a sudden heart attack. He was fifty-two. Left behind a wife and three kids, all younger than Dane. No mention of his first son…” Bryce’s voice cracks as he chokes back a sob. I finally understand why he’s crying and so broken. It’s becausehisdad is dead. He’s dead and had a whole new family. He had never planned on reaching out to his first son. Bryce buries his face in my hair, and I feel his tears on my scalp. I just hold him, stroking his back, trying to comfort him while he falls apart in my arms.
It’s an eternity before Bryce speaks again. His voice cold and detached. He doesn’t lift his head up or move away. He just mumbles his confession into my hair. “Jake drove us to the quarry and we sat and talked. He spun some bullshit about how he always wanted to do right by me and my mom and he never wanted to replace my dad. He said he always thought of me as a son, even when I was angry with him. Then he pulled out the sheet of paper with the obituary. I read it and…I don’t know. Saw red. I got so angry. I’d lost my chance to reconnect with my dad forever. If it wasn’t for Jake, I would still have a dad. I hit him. I just fucking lost it. Jake tried to wrestle me to the ground, but I overpowered him. When we went down his head hit a rock. I didn’t notice at first. I was so lost to my anger. Then I saw the blood…”
Bryce pulls away from me. My arms fall limply by my sides, letting him go. I’m too shocked by his confession to move. He turns, leaning against the kitchen island, giving me his back. Like he’s too ashamed to face me.
“He was just lying there. His eyes open. Staring at me. But there was nothing there. I fucked up, Everly. I didn’t mean to kill him. I was just so angry. So hurt. I didn’t mean to do it.”
I watch his shoulders shake, as sobs wrack through his body. Nausea roils in my stomach, the reality of how dire this situation is settling over me. Then I realize I picked Bryce up by the road. There was no sign of Jake’s car. Bryce looked like he had been in an accident. This isn’t adding up. I have to know the truth. “Bryce… Where’s Jake?”
“I put him in his car and drove it down an embankment just off the road. Put him in the driver’s seat. Made it look like a car accident.”
My world turns sideways. Then I’m sitting on the floor, my back to the cabinets. My head between my knees as I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, fighting the urge to vomit or pass out.
“Everly. Hey. Look at me. Look at me, baby. You can’t tell anyone.” Bryce is kneeling in front of me. This time he is cupping my face, forcing my eyes to meet his.
“You killed him!”
“It was an accident. God, baby, you know me. I’m not a murderer. I just lost my temper, and it was a tragic accident. If you go to the police, they’ll arrest me. They’ll charge me with murder. Then my mom will lose her first husband, second husband, and son in the same day. She will lose everything. You can’t say anything. Promise me. Promise me you won’t say anything, baby. Please.”
I see the fear in Bryce’s eyes as he pleads for my understanding. My compassion. My silence. My heart and my mind are at war. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. The only thing I know is I don’t want to cause any more pain, so I nod. Bryce lets out a relieved sigh and scoops me into his arms. We sit on the floor in silence, both lost to our own thoughts. Reconciling ourselves to the fact that our lives are now forever changed.
CHAPTER 25
EVERLY
EVERLY — AGE 26
Gray clouds hang heavy in the sky, threatening to open and unleash a torrential downpour. The funeral home planned ahead and set up two pop-up canopies on either side of the grave, to cover those in attendance. I’m sitting in the front row, next to Bryce, who is sitting next to his mother, one arm wrapped her shoulders as her body shakes with silent sobs. Dane is on the other side of Caroline, staring at the casket hovering over the open pit in the ground, waiting to be lowered into its final resting place. His face is an emotionless mask. Only the silent tears dampening his cheeks give away his anguish.
Since Jake’s death a week ago, I’ve barely stopped crying myself, torn apart from the inside with grief and guilt. Watching Caroline, a once vibrant and engagingwoman with a smile for everyone, fade into a mere ghost of herself has been heartbreaking. I’ve come over every day after work to deliver meals for her and Dane, clean her house to keep it presentable for the random well-wishers and mourners who keep stopping by, and just to be there if she needs to talk. During these visits I’ve managed to keep my composure, careful to be a safe space for Caroline to dump her grief into, rather than burdening her with my own.
Bryce has even been coming by every day to check on his mother and brother in an unusual show of compassion. We’ve spent more time with Caroline and Dane this past week than the previous five years of our relationship combined. Bryce has sat patiently with his mother while holding her hand and letting her sob into his Oxford button-downs, letting her pour her heartbreak into him. He’s even offered a few words of comfort to Dane, but his brother, in true teenage boy fashion, has retreated into himself. He only appears from his room to eat and take out the trash, only offering head nods and grunts in greeting, refusing to actually talk to anyone.
My relationship with Bryce has been tense since his confession of what really happened the night Jake died. The first few days I begged him to find a way to come clean, the burden of carrying such a huge secret crushing me under its weight. Even though it was an accident, Bryce assured me in the eyes of the law it would not be seen that way. Not after he covered it up. There would be no way for him to confess and not have it look like it was premeditated.Bryce would at the very least be charged with manslaughter—at worst, first degree murder. That would result in a catastrophic domino effect that would ripple through both our families, taking away one of Caroline’s last remaining pillars of support, and causing an uncomfortable backlash against my dad, who has been very involved in Bryce’s career so far. Holding this secret in feels like a cancer eating me from the inside, but Bryce is right. Telling the truth will only cause more hurt for everyone involved.
The crowd in attendance is small. Caroline only wanted immediate family for the graveside service. It’s us; Jake’s parents; his siblings, Michael and Sara; and their families. Bryce talked so little of Jake that I didn’t even know he had siblings until he died. They don’t live close by, but judging by the devastation on their faces, they clearly adored their brother and had a close relationship with him.
The priest recites the closing scripture, Psalm 23, before asking if anyone would like to say any final words before Jake Wilcox is laid to rest. Caroline lets out a devastated wail, like she’s somehow been holding in the worst of her pain this entire time and the announcement that it is time to put Jake into the ground is the final crack in the dam holding back the full force of her grief. The priest flicks a concerned look her way, waiting to see if she will speak, but Bryce just nods for him to continue on, while holding his mother tightly to him. I notice Dane snake one of his hands over to her lap so he can hold her hand too, but he doesn’t move to say anything. Just as the coffinbegins its slow descent into its final resting place, the sky opens up, fat raindrops pelting the canopy above us in a deafening barrage. Under the cover of the downpour, I finally let my own sob burst free, unable to hold back my own tortured grief any longer.
CHAPTER 26
DANE
It’s been seven days since I last saw Everly. One agonizing week since the best night of my life. 168 hours since I felt her lips on mine. I’ve texted her a few times since she left my apartment, but her responses have been short and casual. She told me she was going to play it safe around Bryce until she was sure he didn’t suspect it was me who had picked her up from the fundraising gala. I know she has a plan and having Bryce trust her implicitly is vital to it working, but it doesn’t change the fact that she’s the only thing my mind has been willing to focus on all week. The way her face looks when she comes. The way her eyes shone with surprise and happiness when I fed her breakfast in bed. The way her body fit so perfectly against mine when we slept. I can’t stop thinking about her, and if I don’t see her soon, I might lose my fucking mind.
“Earth to Dane. Are we gonna respond to that call or what?” Serena’s voice breaks through the Everly fog clouding my thoughts, bringing me back to the here andnow. To the crackle of the radio alerting us to a 10-16, domestic disturbance, in progress.
“Shit, yeah, sorry. I was just…”
“In your head. Yeah, I know. You’ve been there all week.” Serena rolls her eyes at me as I shift the cruiser into gear and head to the address on the computer.
My stomach dips when I realize it’s an address in Everly’s gated community. I stare at it for a long moment, trying to remember her exact address, trying to assess how close this disturbance is to her.
