Keep Me Safe (Slow Burn #1)(71)

“I can’t watch this again,” Eliza said, turning away but not before Caleb saw the sheen of tears glistening in her eyes.

Caleb focused his gaze on the LCD screen, his dread growing with every passing second. His brow furrowed when he realized someone had filmed him and Ramie in bed, asleep.

Movement from the bed silenced him when he would have demanded an explanation.

“What the f**k?” he murmured when he saw himself get up and exit the bedroom. Time on the video continued to elapse and he frowned, wondering who the hell had been in the room with him and Ramie. His eyes caught movement again and he leaned forward, shocked to see himself return, carrying a wicked-looking blade.

“What the . . .”

He went deathly still, every muscle painfully contracting in his body. Bile rose in his throat as he stared in utter horror at the events that played out on the screen. No. No. No. This could not be happening. No goddamn way. They couldn’t think . . .

He glanced at his brother, who was looking at him with such disgust that it staggered him. And Dane, who looked as ill as Caleb felt.

They did think . . .

He bent over and dry-heaved on the floor, nothing left in his stomach to come up. He’d never been so sick in his entire life. Sick at heart.

“Get it out of my sight,” Caleb choked out. “Dear God, you can’t think I did something so horrific. I love her!”

Dane’s gaze was fastened on the screen, his features ice cold.

“That says right there you did,” Dane spit out. “You want to tell us where you took her?”

“I didn’t take her anywhere, goddamn it! Why won’t you listen to me?”

“Because we have overwhelming evidence to the contrary,” Beau said, his voice shaking.

Sick fear twisted Caleb’s insides. His own brother was convinced of his guilt. For the first time, Caleb considered the very real ramifications of that damning video. This would be a slam-dunk case. Nothing Caleb said or did would make any difference. Everyone who saw the footage would immediately convict him in their minds—and in a court of law.

And then like a floodgate giving way, memories of last night—and of others—crashed through his mind with dizzying speed. Indescribable pain flayed his chest open, leaving him bleeding on the inside.

Huge, welling sobs choked him, cutting off his oxygen. He staggered and fell to his knees. “No!” he yelled hoarsely. “Oh God, no, no, no!”

He buried his face in his hands and rocked back and forth, so utterly sick at heart that he’d never be right again.

“Caleb, what is it, damn it?” Beau demanded.

Eliza and Dane exchanged worried glances, for the first time uneasy, worried that maybe somehow they had been wrong? But the proof didn’t lie.

Tears streamed down Caleb’s face in a never-ending river of grief. Oh God, how could he have done it? He wanted to die. He deserved to die for his sickening betrayal of an innocent.

He’d killed her. No one else. She’d died by his hand, the man who loved her. The same man who’d sadistically carved her up at the behest of a madman.

Caleb had been responsible for the bomb that had destroyed his home and could have killed his family. He’d worried about protecting her from evil when it was him who proved to be the monster.

“Arrest me,” Caleb said in a hollow voice that in no way sounded like the same man. “I did it. Take me to the police.”

Beau glanced worriedly up at Dane and Eliza.

“The poor bastard,” Dane muttered.

“I don’t think he did it,” Eliza said slowly as she reached for the phone in Dane’s outstretched hand. A phone that Caleb refused to even look at now.

Beau yanked his head in Eliza’s direction. “What? You saw what I saw. What on earth would make you say something like that?”

“I didn’t want to watch—I stopped watching when it began,” Eliza said, her eyes dark and haunted. “But just now . . . ​Oh God, it’s sick but I don’t think he did it. Or maybe that’s just what I want to believe or not believe.”

“You aren’t making any goddamn sense,” Beau snarled. “Now, if there is a chance, any chance that my brother didn’t do this then you need to tell me what you know before it’s too late for him.”

Her hands shaking, she took the phone, pain and grief swamping her eyes. She hit a button and winced when the video began playing just as Caleb brought the knife down and Ramie screamed.

“T-there,” Eliza stammered, pausing the video clip. She turned the phone around and shoved it in Dane’s face. “Tell me what you see.”

Dane frowned, studying the still shot of Caleb kneeling over Ramie’s body. Then his heart slammed against his chest and his breath expelled in a rush, as though someone had just sucker-punched him.

“His nose is bleeding. Sweet mother of God,” Dane said in horror. “A psychic bleed. The bastard was controlling him the entire time and Caleb was trying to fight back. Just like Ramie did when she saw the bomb.”

“What?” Beau said in disbelief.

“He’s fighting the compulsion. Fighting himself and what he knows he’s doing,” Dane said quietly.

“You’re saying Caleb wasn’t cognizant of doing this?” Beau demanded.

“Dane, look,” Eliza hissed.