The Winter Sister(92)

“Told you what?” Ben asked, his voice low and steady.

“Why he picked her up in the first place. Why he stopped the car. Why he put his hands around her neck. He was so stupid, though.”

Tommy looked beyond Ben to the tall, black-eyed statue behind him. “Weren’t you?” he demanded. “I guess you were just trying to justify what you’d done, but—” He returned his gaze to Ben. “He was just giving me more ammo. And he realized that himself, soon enough. That’s when he offered to pay me off.”

Tommy snorted at the memory.

“We were both shivering out there—the snow’s coming down, Persephone’s getting whiter and whiter—and he’s pulling hundred-dollar bills out of his wallet, telling me there’s more where that came from.”

He looked at Will again.

“Pathetic,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t have even told the police anyway. I know how cops are in this town. They’re all—”

“Is it true?” Ben cut in, and though I could only see him in profile, I could tell that his eyes, staring at Will, were as arctic as the air.

Will looked at his feet for a moment, then lifted his chin to meet Ben’s gaze. “No,” he said. “This story he’s concocted, it’s ludicrous. He doesn’t even—”

“Stop.” Ben took a step toward his father, his voice measured. “I’m giving you one more chance to tell me the truth.” I watched his shoulders rise as he took a breath. “Did you kill Persephone?”

Staring at his son, Will’s face sagged, his iron jaw seeming to soften, but when he finally spoke, his answer was unchanged. “No.”

Ben punched him in the face. I heard the sound of it—like a loud crack of ice—before I processed the swinging of his arm. Tommy’s laughter continued, high-pitched, but as soon as Will straightened up, his hand on his jaw, I couldn’t even hear it anymore. Will’s eyes flashed with a rage so bright that Ben actually took a step back.

“You want to know why I picked her up that night?” Will asked, all pretense dropped. “Because of you. This is on you, Ben.”

It seemed to take a moment for words to come to him, but when they did, Ben spit them out as if they burned his tongue.

“Why? Because I let her out of my car when I shouldn’t have? Fuck you. I made a mistake, one that I will always regret, but that doesn’t mean I’m—”

Will put a hand up in the air to silence him. Ben’s immediate compliance suggested it was a gesture he was accustomed to obeying.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Will said. “I’m talking about your insubordination.”

“My what?”

“I told you I didn’t want you dating her.”

“Are you serious?” Ben asked. “I was nineteen.”

“That doesn’t matter!” Will bellowed. “In my day, I listened to my father. Even when what he wanted was in direct opposition with what I wanted. That’s what a son does. But you—” He paused, a look of disgust curling his upper lip. “You failed me. And when I saw her walking that night, I took the opportunity to set things right.”

“Set things right?”

“She accepted my offer of a ride, and when she got in the car, I simply told her I would drive her home as soon as she heard me out. She was polite at first. Respectful. She listened when I explained that the two of you were from different worlds and it would never work out. She nodded along and seemed to understand my points—that staying with you now would only mean greater pain in the future, that you were meant for more and she would only keep you from achieving everything you were destined to. It seemed—for a little while, at least—that we were on the same page. But then she said, and I quote, ‘Go fuck yourself.’ Classy girl you had there.”

Ben shook his head, his body vibrating with rage or horror or even just cold, and when he spoke, his words trembled, too. “So you just killed her?”

“Do you think I meant for that to happen? Of course not. But she tried to get out of the car, and I still had things to say—I couldn’t just let her leave. And then I don’t, I don’t really know what happened. I sort of blacked out, I think—she was being so impossible—and the next thing I knew, I had my hands around her neck and she was just limp.”

“And then you just left her!” Ben exploded. “You just dumped her on the side of the road, let people think she was missing for three fucking days. You saw I was in agony worrying about her. And you didn’t say a word!”

“I didn’t say a word because I knew it would kill you.”

“Oh, really, which part? That my girlfriend was dead, or that my father killed her?”

“Neither,” Will said. “That it was your fault. That if you’d just listened to me from the start and done what I said, she would have still been alive. I was trying to save you from that, son. Because I love you.”

Ben stared at him, his mouth slightly parted. “No,” he said quietly—and then louder. “No. This isn’t you throwing the knife at me in a rage. This is you killing someone. And you’re going to stand there and say you were justified in what you did—that it was actually my fault—just because you didn’t want us to be together? Just because you’re such a narcissistic fuck who couldn’t stand that I was dating someone from the other side of town? God, this fucking family, I—”