All Unquiet Things (36 page)

“No, you weren’t in love with her—you were
obsessed
with her. So obsessed that you drugged and raped her the night of your party.”

“Audrey, just listen to yourself. Does that sound like me?”

“No,” I said weakly. “I don’t understand how you could be this whole different person on the inside. I thought I knew you. Did you ever love me?”

“Of
course
. I still do,” he insisted, but his eyes were dead. His words were empty and worthless, and now that I could see him for what he was, I realized they always had been.

“No, you don’t. You’ve never loved anybody, have you? You’re so good at faking it, being charming and normal, but you don’t feel anything for anybody. What happened, Cass? You made a pass at Carly and she wouldn’t give you what you wanted, so you took it, just like you take everything?”

“This is crazy.”

“‘Act like you have all the power, and people give you what you want.’ Isn’t that what you taught me? But that wouldn’t work with Carly. Maybe she was too good of a person to betray me, or
maybe
she just didn’t want you, so you drugged her and forced her to have sex with you.”

“I would never do something like that.”

“You did. And eventually she figured out it was you.”

“Keep your voice down. And stop pointing that gun at me. I didn’t
do
anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do about that.”

“Tell me the truth!”

“I don’t want to talk about this while you have a gun pointed at me.”

“You’re Barton, aren’t you? I saw those handkerchiefs in your drawer—Barton is your middle name. You’re the one who took over from your brother, not Adam. You bankroll the drug operation and you call the shots. Isn’t that how it works?”

“Fine. You want the truth? You’re right. I am Barton.”

“Did Carly know that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“How?”

“She was suspicious for a while, then one day she followed Adam to the park and saw him hand me a wad of cash in exchange for about fifteen grams of coke. She badgered him about it until he spilled. Carly could be very manipulative, if you remember,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I killed her.”

“That’s exactly what it means.”

“How do you figure?” Cass
smiled
. Not a big, villainous grin, just a tiny little smile that curled the corners of his mouth. That smile used to turn me to jelly, but now it made me sick. I was amusing him with my accusations. He actually found this funny.

The things I’d overheard Mr. Irving screaming at Cass years before rang in my ears.
First it’s your brother, then you. You’re both morons. I was a Rhodes scholar and yet somehow I ended up with two losers for sons
. “You couldn’t turn out just like Jerod. You had to be perfect so that the things your father said about you would never be true. You had to be Cass Irving, the basketball star, golden boy of Empire Valley, because that was the only way to prove to your father you weren’t worthless. But you couldn’t just give up control of Jerod’s business, either, not when it came with such power and influence and money. So you invented Barton and made Adam your front man because you knew you could control him better than anyone else.”

“What’s the big deal?” he asked. “Even if everything you just said is true, it doesn’t make me a
killer
.” He was so
insincere. I couldn’t believe how long I’d been snowed by the persona he’d constructed to hide who he really was. It was horrifying to realize that I’d fallen in love with an absolute lie.

“Carly had you all figured out in the end, didn’t she? It wasn’t just that you were Barton. She knew you weren’t who you appeared to be, what you were capable of. She tried to talk me into breaking up with you multiple times, but I wouldn’t listen.”

“Carly was a bitch,” Cass said.

“No, Carly was smart. So you had to subdue her. Scare her, take advantage of her, ruin her relationship with Adam by making him believe she cheated on him. She had figured out who you really were, what you had done to her and to Laura, and when she tried to take you down you killed her.”

Cass didn’t respond. Instead he said, “So, what? We have a Mexican standoff until my housekeeper comes in and offers us milk and cookies?”

“Or until you pick up that cell phone and call the police to confess.”

“Not going to happen.”

“Fine, I’ll do it.” I moved around the bed and picked up my cell phone from the bedside table, the gun not wavering for an instant. I had left the phone on silent, and there were five missed calls from Neily and a text that read:
IT WAS CASS.
No shit.

“Audrey, you have no idea what you’re doing.”

“For the first time in a long time I know exactly what I’m doing.” I dialed 911 and someone picked up immediately.

“What’s your emergency?”

“I’d like to report a crime—” I began, but was interrupted by the sound of a window breaking and Neily calling my name.

Cass mobilized instantly, taking advantage of my distraction and attacking me, throwing me to the ground and yanking the gun from my hand. Neily ran into the room just as I was getting up off the floor. I looked up to see Cass pointing the gun right at us, and then at Neily, who was pointing a gun at Cass. Suddenly, everyone was armed but me.

“Did you really need socks that badly?” Cass sneered, closing my cell phone and ending the call. “You’ve done a very stupid thing, Aud, you really have.”

“Put the gun down, Cass,” Neily said. “There’s no point—everyone will know it’s you.”

“Did you ever think that the point is to shoot you just to watch you die?”

“Don’t,” I warned Neily. Provoking Cass now was not a good plan.

“Fine. Shoot us. I think four murders officially constitutes a spree.”

“Neily!” I hissed.

Neily reached over and gave my hand a quick squeeze. His eyes stayed on Cass, and the hand holding the gun didn’t shake. “Why did you kill Carly, Cass?”

“He’s Barton,” I said. “And Carly knew it. She also knew he killed Laura Brandt, or had her killed. Eventually she must’ve realized he was the one who raped her.”

“Did she threaten you that night on the bridge?” Neily asked. “Did she threaten to expose you, just like Laura did?”

“Audrey’s dad murdered Carly,” Cass said. “She was shot with his gun. How would I have gotten my hands on that?”

“Good question.
Carly
brought the gun. She had a key to Audrey and Enzo’s house and she knew where the gun was stashed; she must’ve sneaked in that afternoon before Enzo
came home. Audrey was sleeping off her stomachache.” He turned to me ever so slightly before zeroing in again on Cass. “She knew you were crazy; she knew you would hurt her if you found out she was taping your confession, so she brought the gun to protect herself.”

“Considering the position you’re in right now, that was probably a safe bet on her part.” Cass smiled and shook his head. “And for the record, I didn’t rape her. Carly was a slut, and she was high on Special K. She practically
begged
for it.”

Neily’s hand was shaking, but his voice was calm. “We read her diary. She felt violated and betrayed, but the ketamine wiped her memory and you were off the hook. You couldn’t keep away, though, huh? You stalked her, wrote her those creepy letters. She kept them, you know—we’ve read them.”

“You’ve got all the answers, don’t you, Think Tank?”

“Not all of them. I still don’t know how she got you down to the bridge in the first place.”

Cass’s eyes flicked over to my cell phone, which he’d tossed on the foot of the bed.

“She sent him a text,” I said. “It wasn’t in the sent folder, but he probably deleted it after he shot her. There were no prints on the phone—he must’ve wiped it down so no one would suspect someone else had touched it.”

“Nancy Drew 2.0,” Cass said. “Very clever.”

“Sometime between the night that you raped her and the night that you killed her, Carly must’ve figured out that it was
you
who controlled Adam’s operation, and when Oz told her that Laura Brandt had disappeared, she knew you had something to do with it,” Neily deduced.

“You can’t prove that.”

“Carly thought she could.”

“Carly was an idiot. That’s what got her killed. She trusted the wrong people.”

“I’m pretty sure she didn’t trust you.”

“I’m talking about Enzo.”

“My dad—!” I cried, but Neily interrupted me.

“Come on, Cass. We all know Enzo didn’t kill Carly. You did. She went to Lucy’s party the night before she died and confronted Adam about Laura. Then he took her into a bedroom and all those bad memories came flooding back and she knew—she
knew—
you had killed Laura using the information she gave Adam. But she needed proof. So she lured you to the bridge under false pretenses and taped you confessing. What did she tell you? That she wanted you? That she was glad Laura was dead? Anything so you’d spill.”

“You think I’d really be stupid enough to confess to her?”

“Carly could be pretty persuasive. And you would’ve done whatever it took to get at her, to have her under your power. You’d even believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that she would ever want you.”

“Shut up!”

“So that
is
what she told you. And in exchange you told her, what? Everything? How you drove to Arizona and convinced Laura to check herself out of rehab—how? By telling her that her life was in danger, that you were going to give her the money to make herself scarce? I’m no detective, but I’d bet you weren’t smart enough not to use a credit card to buy gas, or to use a pay phone instead of a cell phone to call Laura at the rehab center. I’m pretty sure that’s the kind of stuff the police can check up on.”

Cass went pale, and whether or not Neily actually knew what he was talking about, he had obviously hit a nerve.

“Not that it matters. I talked to Adam, and he’s going to go on record shredding your alibi to pieces. And when he does, the police are going to start looking for witnesses who saw your car on Empire Creek Road that night, and they’ll probably find one.”

“Don’t forget this,” I said, holding up the ring. “He took it as some kind of sick trophy.”

“You think I’m just going to let you walk out of here with that?”

“It’s over, Cass,” Neily said. “It was over the minute you decided to get rid of Laura Brandt.”

“She was going to ruin my life!” he screamed. “They both were! You know what Carly said to me? She said she was going to erase me. So I erased her.”

Neily scoffed. “I’m sure that defense will hold up nicely on the witness stand.”

“I’m not going to jail!”

“Yes, you are.” Neily reached into his pocket with his free hand and pulled out a tape recorder.

Cass’s face twisted with rage and his finger tightened on the trigger.

“Get down!” Someone yelled.

I grabbed Neily’s arm and yanked him to the ground. Two shots rang out and three police officers stormed into the room. I looked up and watched Cass fall backward onto the bed. The gun tumbled from his hand and onto the carpet.

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Is he dead?” Neily asked the officer who was hunched over Cass’s body, feeling for a pulse. “Officer Bryson?”

The officer exhaled. “Lopez, get the paramedics in here.”

“Oh my God,” I repeated, trembling. I pressed my face into Neily’s shoulder and he put his arms around me.

“Get them out of here,” Bryson barked to another officer, who took the gun out of Neily’s hand, tugged at his arm, and led us out of the room. I glanced back once at Cass, then looked away. Neily and I held on to each other as we went down the stairs and walked out of the house. The officer packed us into a patrol car and drove us down to the station. It rained the whole way.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
FIVE

C
ass died that night from complications relating to a gunshot wound to the chest. The police claimed that Cass turned his gun on them, leaving Officer Bryson no choice but to shoot to kill. I had to hand over everything to them—the letters, the ring, the diary—but tucked in between the end pages and the cover of Carly’s journal there was a letter addressed to Neily. I shouldn’t have read it, but I did. I gave everything else to the police, but this I kept. It belonged to no one but him.

Dear Neily
,

Things have gotten so out of control. I’ve made some terrible decisions, hurt people I never could have imagined
hurting. A few months before she died, my mother gave me a book called
An Unknown Woman,
by Alice Koller. I never read it, not until last week, when I devoured it in one night. The author wrote something that made me cry. She wrote, “I’ve arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. Therefore, I must stop doing what I’ve been doing.” I knew then that I had to do what was right to fix the mistakes I’ve made and turn away from the terrible person I’m becoming. I have the inclination and the desire to be good, but I haven’t been acting like it. Long before this horrible mess, you became the first casualty of my personality revolution. You’ll want to know why. Here it is: I broke up with you because I wanted to realign myself with the world, to distract myself from the fact that I was falling apart by creating a whole new facade to hide behind. I didn’t realize that you were the only thing holding me together, that the fact that you cared about me, that you knew me and understood me, was all I needed to rediscover who I was. My mother’s death—it wasn’t something I wanted to think about, much less talk about. All I wanted was escape—mindless, overwhelming, indulgent escape, and I found it in Adam. Maybe I thought that once I got over my loss I could come back to you, but of course that’s ridiculous—you could never forgive me. Still … when I’ve done what I need to do I’m going to go to you—I don’t know what I’ll say to convince you to take me back, in any way that you can; labels mean nothing when it comes to you and me. I know you still care about me—if you didn’t, you wouldn’t work so hard to hate me. I miss you so much. I wish you knew how much
.