Burying Water (Burying Water #1)(107)

“I don’t know, Jesse.” My mom rests her forehead in her hands. “What if she wants to press charges against her husband?”

“Then I will help her,” my dad says. He and I both know what that means. Right now, my dad can control the investigation. He can keep it low profile. But a deeper investigation and charges would mean potential disaster for him and me. It might uncover all kinds of things, including my ties to her. What if Viktor admitted to it all, including where he dumped the body? How, then, would anyone explain the fact that the body was found somewhere else? By Sheriff Gabe Welles. The father of the guy who was having an affair with the victim, the accused’s wife?

More than likely, Viktor wouldn’t admit to a damn thing. But what he would learn is that she survived, that she was clearly moved, and that my father happens to be the guy who found her.

It stirs up way too many questions that my father can’t answer without either perjuring or incriminating himself for his part in all this. I don’t know if he grasped the full extent of these consequences when he picked up that radio to call it in. I have a hard time believing he didn’t. He’s never been one to make rash decisions.

Maybe Alex was right. I guess when it came time, I really could count on him.

“And if, by some chance, she still doesn’t remember anything three months down the road?”

“Wouldn’t that be the best thing for her? You don’t want her ending up like Ginny Fitzgerald, do you?”

“Ginny’s a special case,” my mom argues, her lips pursing with wariness. “But realistically, the hospital won’t carry the financial burden forever. Where does Alex go when they release her?”

“I have some ideas.” Gabe gazes out the patio door, his shoulders sagging as if burdened by a weight.

His eyes locked on the Fitzgerald garage.

THIRTY-EIGHT

Water

now

I can’t stop staring at the grassy clearing, bathed in late-day sun and smattered with purple and yellow wildflowers. A perfect setting for a lazy stroll, or a picnic.

Or, apparently, to leave a person to die.

“It was dark, and there was snow everywhere, but . . .” Jesse’s gaze drifts over the field, his eyes blinking rapidly. “This is where I found you. I still can’t shake that memory.”

I’ve listened to Jesse unload invaluable information—day by day, from the moment we met until the agreement he made with Meredith and Gabe to keep me in the dark—for hours.

Catching little flickers, little feelings.

Like bits of things on the verge of escape.

It’s as if I needed to see the overall picture before I ever had a chance to begin fitting together all the tiny pieces of this thousand-piece puzzle.

“So, I was moving to Sisters anyway?”

Jesse swallows hard. When he speaks again, his voice has turned gruff. “That weekend. You were going to leave him a letter and then walk out the gate. I’d be waiting for you at the end of the road, where the cameras wouldn’t catch my car, in case he checked the footage.”

“And I told you it was Viktor’s baby? Why would I lie?”

Viktor.

The name presses against its confines in my brain. The more I hear it, the more I think it, the closer it is to breaking out. The one demon that I probably want to remain in the steel trap.

“You didn’t lie, technically. I never asked you. I just assumed it was and you didn’t correct me. We used condoms every single time and I figured you were on birth control. But I never asked. The first night we were together, you were so upset. I just tossed the condom without checking it.” He shrugs. “It must have torn. But I don’t know.”

“But why wouldn’t I just tell you? If I cared so much about you, why wouldn’t I want you to know?”

He shrugs. “You said something to me one night about not wanting me to feel trapped, and how if it wasn’t working out, not to feel obligated. I think you didn’t want me feeling like I was stuck. That pretending it was Viktor’s baby would give me an out.”

So Jesse thought it wasn’t his kid, and yet he was still willing to take me away from that mess.

“And my husband found out that I was pregnant with someone else’s baby.” It’s still not making sense. “But how did he know? How did I know it wasn’t his?”

Jesse bends down to pluck a flower, to twirl it in his fingers like I’ve seen his sister do. “I’ve never been sure of what Viktor knew, or what caused this. I figured either he found out you were leaving him or he found out about us. As for how he knew that the baby wasn’t his . . . My old roommate, Boone, called yesterday. You met him at Roadside, remember?”

I nod. If what Jesse tells me is all true, then that guy is the other reason why I’m standing here today. Now I know why he was acting weird around me. I think I owe him a hug, at least.

“I never bothered telling Boone that you were pregnant before. But I told him yesterday. The first thing he said was that it couldn’t be Viktor’s because the guy couldn’t have kids.”

I frown. “How on earth would he know?”

Jesse rubs his forehead, like he doesn’t want to admit the rest. “Boone’s been f**king around with a girl named Priscilla, who Viktor knew very well.” He doesn’t need to elaborate. “According to Priscilla, Viktor refused to wear any protection with her, because he assumed she was one hundred percent his and he knew for a fact that he was one hundred percent sterile.”