Don't Make a Sound (Sawyer Brooks #1)(62)

“I gotta get back to work,” he said angrily.

She took a breath. He had no business pulling her away from the chief, but he’d wanted to calm her down, and his little trick had worked. Her heart was no longer beating against her ribs. She climbed in behind the wheel of her car and drove off. She would talk to the chief another time.

Five minutes later, she pulled up the driveway to her parents’ house, parked the car, and got out. The front door was unlocked. She walked in, hoping to sneak down the hall and through the kitchen to the cottage.

“Sawyer, is that you?” came her father’s voice from the room her mother called the salon. Sawyer never went into the salon, because when she did, all she could see were those men’s faces, the ones who had paid Uncle Theo to do as they pleased with her—a small, defenseless child.

She sucked in a breath and headed that way. Until this very moment she hadn’t had a second to think about the implications of Uncle Theo’s death. How would Mom and Dad take the news? She recalled the chief telling her he’d called Mom this morning. Her chest tightened. They knew everything.

She walked into the salon. Her gaze fell on her father. He was sitting in his favorite chair.

Mom was standing in the corner near the floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelf. She carefully slid a book with a leather spine back into place and then took a seat on a cushioned Queen Anne armchair.

They were both quiet . . . both watching her.

The air enveloping them was electric in a hauntingly eerie sense—thick with an energy that sizzled and sparked.

Dad gestured toward the Empire side chair that appeared to have been set in the middle of the room, facing them both, for just this purpose. They were going to have a chat.

Sawyer walked over to the chair, mindful of the squeaky sound her shoes made against the polished hardwood floor. She took a seat, kept her hands folded in her lap, and looked from one parent to the other.

For the first time in her life, she had their full attention.

And she didn’t want it.

Life was funny that way. Giving you what you craved most when you no longer wanted it.

The chief had definitely called Mom about Uncle Theo. Her face looked as if it had been chiseled from stone. “You killed Theodore.”

Dad raised a hand as if to either stop Mom from talking or buffer the blame coming from her statement. Silly man. Dad could light up the room with an impressive display of fireworks, and it wouldn’t do any good. Nothing would stop Mother Dearest from having her say. Mom’s opinions on all things were all that mattered. Mom loved to listen to the sound of her own voice. She was the ruler, the queen of her household, of her husband, and of her sorry little life.

“I asked you to leave it alone and mind your own business,” Mom told Sawyer, talking to her as if she were a child. “But you couldn’t do it.”

“I went to Uncle Theo’s house to talk to him. That’s all.”

“You accused him of murder.”

“Did Uncle Theo call you after I left?” Sawyer asked.

Mom hissed. “Of course he called me. He was extremely upset.”

“Why would he call you and not his brother?” Sawyer asked. “Why call you at all, considering he was the one badgering me to talk to him and forgive him?”

Nobody had an answer.

“For the record,” Sawyer said, looking from Mom to Dad, “I didn’t kill Uncle Theo. He found a good, strong cord and hung himself from the ceiling fan in his bedroom without any help from me.”

Mom looked at Dad. “I warned you about her. I told you that if she came to Sally’s funeral, she would cause trouble, but you wouldn’t listen.”

Dad sighed, his eyes fixating on Sawyer. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I know you don’t like to drive when it’s dark, so you can pack your things tonight and set off at first light. Your mother and I have things to do at the store in the morning, so we’ll have to say our goodbyes now.”

Sawyer felt a strange mix of emotions. Not sad. Not relieved. Nothing she could put her finger on. But she found it strange to think she might never see her parents again. That thought alone emboldened her further. “I went to see Uncle Theo for the second time, because I needed to know the truth.”

“The truth?” Dad asked.

Sawyer nodded. “Uncle Theo implied that someone else was responsible for selling me and Aria to rich old men. He said the rape parties were not his idea.”

“Here we go again,” Mom said in her usual dramatic fashion. “If a young girl tells herself over and over again that she’s been sexually abused, she begins to see it as the truth.” Mom’s face softened. “You were never raped, Sawyer. It was all in your head. Uncle Theo used to give you girls sleeping pills to calm you down. You were all energetic children, too much for one man to handle while we were away. Unfortunately, one of the symptoms of the drug he gave you was hallucinations.”

More lies. “What’s the name of the drug?” Sawyer asked.

Mom’s smirk dripped with disdain. “That’s not important. The only thing that matters is that now you know why you and your sister Aria have been so confused. When you go back to Sacramento, you can tell Aria what you’ve learned, and maybe together you girls can move on to bigger and better things.”

Sawyer stared at her mom as she thought back to those years after her sisters left. Mom had always scolded her for mistakes she’d made. Mistakes Sawyer had acknowledged. Mom never took into account how courageous Sawyer had been to speak the truth. Always criticizing. Never a proud moment.