Page 143 of A Smile Full of Lies
And when this damned true crime book came out — when the truth about the murders and the journals and everything he’d become was printed in black and white —shewould be the one left sitting in the ashes. And I was the one lighting the match.
Tears blurred my vision, but I didn’t stop typing. Because no matter how much I hated it, I owed the truth to the ones who were buried.
More than that, I owed it to the one who wasn’t.
NOVEMBER 30
It was two weeks since Knox had deposited me here in this goddamned cabin. Two weeks where I’d done nothing but read all of the horrifying details of Thayer’s madness, of the events that had unraveled my life, and Knox’s – read, and then cry, and then write. And sometimes rewrite, and rewrite, trying to do the ghastly story justice, to tell the truth, without sensationalizing it.
It was mostly done now, faster than I’d thought it might be, in the end.
But what dragged at me was the lack of news – there’d been no more articles in the Stonewood Times, no declaration to the world of Thayer’s guilt, of his cousins’ guilt.
Just silence. And I needed to see it made public. Needed to know what had happened to the cousins – Thayer was dead, but what about the others?
I sipped my morning coffee, wondering idly if I’d run out before my exile to this place ended, and stared out of the window. The river and the trees were just the same. Quiet. Nothing had disturbed me since that visit from Nox Obscura in the first few days I’d been here. I almost wished that something had – a distraction from living perpetually in the horrors of the past would have been good.
I should check today’s news. Maybe there’d be another article. Perhaps it didn’t matter if there wasn’t – after all, the closer the public announcement of it all was to the day that I released thisbook, the bigger the publicity for the book would be. I might not have sensationalized it, might not want to profit off Knox’s trauma, but at the same time, I wanted the truth of it spread as wide as possible – wanted it to pay back for Knox’s faith in me, in trusting me to write it.
I opened the laptop, just like I had each morning since I got here, and went to the Stonewood Times’ website. For a second, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My brain had to catch up to what was there, because truthfully, I’d expected nothing. But there it was – not the sort of article I’d expected, but a relevant one, regardless.
The Stonewood Times
Monday Edition - November 30
Three Williams Brothers Missing; Boat Debris Found Along Shoreline
Stonewood — Local authorities are investigating the disappearance of three members of the prominent Williams family after their vessel was reported missing on November 19th.
Eli Williams, Caleb Williams, and Chad Williams were discovered gone on the morning of November 18th, when relatives noticed Chad’s 40-foot sportfisher missing from its private dock near Perdido Pass. No one had seen the boat depart during the night. When they did not return by the next morning, the missing report was made
On November 28th, burned debris believed to be from the vessel was recovered along the Gulf shoreline. The boat itselfhas not been located, and no human remains have been found.
Police have released few details, but officials acknowledged the vessel was known to have a history of electrical issues. Whether mechanical failure played a role has not yet been determined. The brothers remain classified as missing, though authorities concede survival is unlikely.
The case remains under investigation.
My mind filled with a tangle of questions, and feelings.
They were gone – unless this was some elaborate set up to get them out of the country before they were arrested, it sure sounded like they were dead. And them being gone filled me with relief. They’d been a potential threat hanging over me, and I’d worried that they might decide Thayer’s death was all my fault, and come after me, before the police got to them, before the evidence was deemed enough to arrest them. I hadn’t said anything about that feeling to Knox, too afraid that he’d just go off and ‘deal with’ them, to protect me.
Then I paused… he couldn’t have… could he? But no, he was out of the country, off somewhere, wearing those sinfully good-looking suits, and being the powerful businessman, so it was impossible. A whole extra layer of relief slid through me.
And with that, something unraveled, and there in that quiet cabin, a strangled sob escaped me, and I cried again, letting all of that stored-up fear out.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
DECEMBER 6
ROS
Twenty Days.
That’s how long I’ve been holed up in Knox’s river house with nothing but coffee, painkillers, Thayer’s journal scans and what Alyssa was able to release to me from the case files, and the kind of grief that mutates when left alone too long.
Tomorrow is day twenty-one, the end of the retreat. The day Knox is supposed to come for me. Tonight, I’ve finally finished the book.
