Page 10 of Broken Minds

He leaned away from me and looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “She’s the housekeeper, Jolie. Of course she doesn’t.”

My cheeks burned, feeling stupid. I was clutching at straws, but that was all I had. I didn’t want to die on this island. I couldn’t stand the idea of this being the last thing or place I’d ever see.

“What if I cooperated?” I suggested. “I’d be good as gold. I’d sit quietly and nod, and smile and not say a word.”

“First of all, the state of your face will immediately make people suspicious. Secondly, I can’t trust you. You’ve proven that much.”

“If you want to do this, then you’re going to have to trust me. What’s the other option—that you call this whole thing off? I think I know you well enough by now to see how that would be the very last thing you’d want to do. You said you’d been planning and working your whole life to use me to take revenge on my father, and you’re just going to give up at the first hurdle.”

He glared at me. “You don’t know me at all. And it’s not giving up, it’s adapting.”

“Call it whatever you want. Seems like the same thing to me.”

He fell silent, and my pulse quickened. Was he considering my suggestion? The possibility of not only getting out of this room but also getting off the island made me lightheaded with possibility. If we were on the road, traveling, there would be other people—people I could ask for help. I didn’t want to get anyone else involved in my mess, but I would if it meant my escape. I hoped Hayden wasn’t capable of killing an innocent person if they tried to help me.

If I was going to convince Hayden to do this, I needed to step up my acting game. I had no intention of being a pawn in his plan to kill my father, but he didn’t know that I wasn’t going to do what he wanted.

“I hate him, you know,” I said, quietly.

Hayden stopped dabbing my head and frowned down at me. “What?”

“I think there’s a good chance I hate him even more than you. He was the first man I ever trusted, and he destroyed that trust in the worst possible way. He stole your family, but he stole mine, too. My mother killed herself, and as soon as my brother was old enough, he put as much distance between us as possible. I had my aunt, but things were always strained between us. She was grieving over her sister, and trying to raise two messed up kids when she never even wanted children of her own. You might not think I’m a victim, but that doesn’t change how I feel about him. I hate him just as much as you, if not more, and I’ll be happy to see him dead. If that means helping you do it, then I’m okay with that.”

Hayden touched the bottom of my chin and lifted my face to his. My breath caught, my heart racing. For a moment, I thought he might kiss me, but instead his emerald gaze bored into mine, as though he was trying to read my mind. I felt trapped by him, and not because I was handcuffed and locked beneath his house. In that moment, even if we’d been out in the open and my hands had been free, I thought I would still be pinned by the weight of his stare.

“You used it,” he said. His tone was soft, but it contained something dangerous approaching, like the low hum of a distant train on a track, as yet unseen, but hurtling toward the person on the rails.

“What?” I didn’t understand.

“You used his murders to get ahead in life. You used it to secure your university place, and you used it again during your talk to get credits. Who would you be, Jolie, if you weren’t Patrick Dorman’s daughter? Do you even know?”

Sudden tears trembled in my eyes, and his face blurred before me. “I... I never meant for it to come across like that.”

He released my chin. “Well, it did, and you have to live with that.”

He finished what he was doing and picked up the pieces of bloodied tissue and the first aid box. “I’ll leave you with the ice. Keep it on your nose, and the swelling will soon go down.”

I nodded, staring at my cuffed hands, unable to look at him as he turned and left.

Maybe he was right. Who would I be if I wasn’t Patrick Dorman’s daughter? Who had I been before I’d found out about the murders? I wasn’t sure I even remembered anymore. I had brief memories of being happy—of vacations, birthdays, and holidays—but they were more like movie clips I’d watched of someone else. The person I’d become after the truth had come out had been wholly formed by his actions, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Maybe my brother had done the right thing by disowning his remaining family and changing his name. If I’d done the same, instead of trying to own who I was, would none of this be happening to me now? Maybe then I’d have figured out who Jolie Dorman really was instead of allowing my father’s actions to define me.

Maybe then Hayden Vale would never have found me.

I’d thought I was doing the brave thing by keeping my name and speaking up about what had happened, but perhaps I’d done the opposite. Had I used it as a blanket to hide behind?

An excuse to never have to learn who I was other than the daughter of a serial killer?

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