Buried (Bone Secrets, #3)(12)

Jamie sucked in a breath. “Get out.”

“He was tortured, wasn’t he? He probably had nightmares for years.”

She simply stared. “Why are you doing this?”

Michael’s eyes softened, and she couldn’t look away. “I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to understand how your brother thinks. They’ve found a place they believe the children were held. There’s evidence of…Maybe seeing it could help your brother with some memory recall.”

What was in that place? What’d the police find? Oh, Chris…

“No. He shouldn’t see it. I won’t put him through that.” Chris’s screams rang in her head. How many times had she awakened to hear his screams in the middle of the night? His body had finally healed, but his mind…his mind was never the same. Her happy, joking older brother had never returned.

“Where is he?” Michael spoke evenly, drawing the words out.

“I’ll tell you the same as I told the police,” Jamie snapped back. “I have a phone number. I leave a message on a voice mail. Sometimes he calls me back or texts me, but the number is always blocked, so I know it’s probably not the number I leave the message at.”

“Did he come home when your parents died in the car accident?”

Jamie swallowed hard. “No. I don’t think so.”

Michael tensed in a way that reminded of her of a hunting bird spotting its prey. He jumped on her words. “Don’t think so? Was he here or not? How long ago was the accident? Two years?”

“Two and a half.” Tears smarted at the corners of her eyes.

“Was he here?”

“I didn’t see him.”

“But?” His eyes wouldn’t release hers.

“But I could tell someone had been in my parents’ home. Some photos were missing. And there was a sketch left on the counter.”

“A sketch? Like a drawing?”

Jamie nodded.

“You didn’t tell the police that someone had been in the home?”

“No one forced their way in. Someone had a key. The sketch told me it’d been Chris.”

“Why? What’d he draw?”

Jamie shrugged. The sketch was matted, framed, and on her bedroom wall. It wasn’t a big secret. “A mountain range. He did lots of drawing after he came back. Especially mountains or beaches. Part of his therapy…” Her voice trailed away.

“You didn’t see him at the funeral? He didn’t make contact with you?”

“I haven’t seen him since he left,” she whispered. A small crack widened in her heart.

“When did he leave town originally?”

“It’s been close to ten years.”

Surprise crossed his face. “You haven’t seen your brother in ten years?”

Jamie shook her head.

“What an ass.”

She jerked. “Don’t call him that. You don’t know what he’s been through.”

“You’ve been through a lot, too. Your parents died and your brother won’t even see you? Sounds selfish. Really selfish to me.”

“He…it was okay. I didn’t mind. I understood. He’d been through so much. I handled everything for their funeral.”

Michael was silent for two seconds, his gaze penetrating. “I bet you handled everything.”

Jamie lifted her chin. “I managed.”

He was silent for another ten seconds. Jamie could nearly hear the wheels and gears working in his brain.

“Why haven’t you seen him? Why does he hide from you?”

Jamie licked at her lips. “He likes to be alone. He doesn’t want people talking to him or staring at him. It’s always been that way. Ever since he came back. His face…his face wasn’t right. His jaw was broken…” Her voiced cracked. “And he had burn scars and cuts that never went away. Even with all his plastic surgery. He didn’t like people staring.”

“But he’s an adult now.”

“I don’t know if that matters. As soon as he finished high school, he left.”

“Your parents let him leave?”

“They didn’t try to stop him. They pretty much let him do whatever made him happy. He’d been through hell. He couldn’t tell us what, but at night—” Jamie closed her lips.

“Nightmares. Screams?”

She nodded.

“Do you think he’s still struggling with that?”

“I think he would come home if he wasn’t.” Jamie finally looked away from those green eyes. Why was she telling him this?

“Maybe it’d be good for him to face some of this. Put it in his past.”

“He did so much therapy. Physical and mental, emotional. But he wasn’t stupid.”

Michael blinked. “Of course not. I didn’t say that.”

“He was smart. Chris was the sharpest kid in school. Just because he got bad grades didn’t mean he was stupid. He could have gotten a scholarship to college—he was so smart. Or a scholarship for his art. His paintings are amazing! He always helped me with my homework because everything was a breeze for him. He was just bored.”

Michael stared at her. Her rant had obviously surprised him. He’d been working to pry answers from her, and now she was running off at the mouth. Jamie blinked hard. She wanted Michael to know how intelligent Chris was. She didn’t want him to think Chris was some psycho hermit in a hut, in the forest, planning to blow up buildings. Her brother wasn’t like that. He was good and sharp and couldn’t help it if he felt things very deeply. He needed to be away from crowds. He needed peace. Cities were too fast for him. He’d needed to live where he could move at his own pace, working where his talent was appreciated but not in an office with cubicles. Chris lived and breathed through computers. He freelanced. His clients never met him face-to-face. He only interacted with others through cyberspace.