The Bad Daughter(62)

Robin wondered now if her father had set his sights on Tara even then, if he’d deliberately set out to sabotage his own son.

Some men should never have sons.

I hear he eats his young.

She sat up in bed, careful not to disturb Blake. She stared down at his handsome face, his mouth partly open in sleep, nighttime stubble grazing his cheeks and jaw. He’d been so good about everything, so patient and understanding. If he was upset about Alec running off with his car—and how could he not be?—he hadn’t taken it out on her. Unlike her father, who’d always found a way to blame everyone else whenever anything didn’t go exactly according to his plan, Blake had been quick to shoulder part of the responsibility for what Alec had done. “I should never have left my fob out where he could just pick it up,” he’d offered generously.

“You couldn’t have known he’d do something like this.”

“I should have at least considered the possibility. It was careless.”

She reached over and gently flicked several stray hairs away from his eyes. He was right—he was not her father. They weren’t anything alike.

Still, she couldn’t blame her father for everything, despite the temptation to do exactly that. She wasn’t a child. At some point, you had to grow up, accept responsibility for your own actions. You could blame your parents for only so long.

Wasn’t that what she regularly advised clients?

Maybe she wasn’t such a bad therapist after all.

Try to remember this resolve in the morning, she told herself, about to lie back down when she heard the rumble of tires on gravel. She got out of bed and opened the bedroom window, straining to hear more.

Had she heard anything at all?

It was several more seconds before she heard a car door close. In the next instant, she was downstairs and at the front door. The second after that, she was outside, her eyes straining through the darkness.

Slowly a figure emerged.

Her brother.

Thank God.

She was assaulted by a multitude of conflicting emotions—anger, gratitude, apprehension. Above all, relief. She burst into tears. “Alec, what the hell…?”

He stopped several feet from where she stood, his sigh sending ripples through the heavy air. “Follow me,” he said.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR


“Where are we going?” Robin demanded. “And where in God’s name have you been?”

Alec had already started up the path to the road. Robin raced to catch up to him.

“Where have you been?” she asked again as she reached his side. “We’ve been worried sick. Why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“Don’t have one.” He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and refused to look at her.

“What do you mean, you don’t have one?”

“Tossed it in the trash before I left San Francisco.”

“You tossed it in the trash?”

“Yes. Are you going to keep repeating everything I say?”

“Why would you throw your phone in the garbage?” Robin asked, making a conscious effort to rephrase the question.

“Didn’t want the police searching through its history,” he said, as if this fact should be self-evident.

“You didn’t want the police…” Robin left the sentence hanging. “Why not? What were you afraid they’d find?”

He shrugged, brought his fingers to his lips, his eyes searching the darkness. “Ssh,” he said.

“What do you mean, ssh? Don’t shush me.”

“There are ears everywhere.”

“It’s almost one o’clock in the morning. Who do you think is out here?”

“Oh, you’d be surprised who might be listening.”

“Where the hell have you been? And where the hell are we going?” Robin asked as he turned left at the road.

“Nowhere in particular.”

“We just happen to be walking toward our father’s new house?”

“Not quite so imposing in the dark, is it?” Alec said.

It was her turn to stop. “You called it the biggest fucking house in Red Bluff.”

“So I did.”

“How did you know that unless you’d seen it?”

“Lucky guess?”

“Alec…”

“Come on,” he urged. “Enough questions. Can’t we just go for a pleasant evening stroll?”

“Evening was six hours ago. Are you going to tell me where you’ve been since then? How could you just take off in Blake’s car like that?” She continued without pause. “Do you know how…?”

“…stupid that was?” Alec said, finishing her question.

Robin felt a pang of guilt. “Stupid” had been their father’s favorite insult for his son. “It was reckless, Alec,” she said. “What if Sheriff Prescott had seen you…”

“Oh, he saw me.”

“He saw you?”

“You’re doing it again.”

“What the fuck, Alec? What do you mean, he saw you?”

“Okay, okay. Take it down a notch. Look over there.” He pointed down the road.

“What am I looking at? I don’t see anything.”