Page 43 of Everything After

“Beckett,” Jerald says, but I don’t look up at him. Instead, I stare out into the night, wishing I could make it all disappear. “This wasn’t Anthony.”

“I know,” I say quietly.

“He didn’t have the brains for something like this,” Jerald continues. “It took planning.”

“I know.” He’s stating the obvious at this point, but he knows I need to hear him say it.

“Years…”

“Yeah,” I say, turning back to look at the house.

Crime scene lights shine through every window. It suddenly feels less like my home and more like a stage. Every memory inside those walls feels violated. It’s not because someone entered; it’s because someone watched. They watched me; they watched her; they watched every private moment of her trauma unwinding behind those walls. They saw her fighting with reality, trying to untangle all of the damage Anthony caused her.

How am I supposed to explain to Sierra that her healing was tainted? How do I tell her that she is safe when these cameras prove that she was never safe? We were never alone. Every promise I made her feels like a fucking lie now.

The technician comes out of the house carrying a plastic evidence box. “So?” Jerald asks.

“Twenty-three so far,” he says.

“Twenty-three?” Mason mimics.

“We still have the garage and Beckett’s office, though,” he tells us.

“This is too much for me to handle alone,” Jerald says eventually.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“This isn’t just county business anymore,” he tells me. “ Whoever did this wasn’t just spying on y’all. They were running surveillance.”

Surveillance. Not eavesdropping. Not curiosity. An operation. I stare at the home where Sierra finally learned she was safe. The place where she laughed. Where she learned to cook again. Read books in bed. Discovered she loved to be kissed. Every one of those memories was stolen from her.

Chapter Nineteen

Sierra

I am restless. I am trying to lose myself in a story so I can escape this reality for a bit, but I can’t. I read the words, but my mind is still going a million miles an hour. Beckett hesitantly told me about all of the surveillance bugs. I think everyone expected me to melt down, and honestly, I thought I would, too. I just can’t sit still. Mason threatened to drug me with sleeping medicine if I kept trying to clean. So, I am sitting on the couch with my legs across Beckett’s lap, pretending to read.

A knock on the door has us all jumping up suddenly. Beckett has his hand on his waist where his pistol is hidden as he opens the door. “I need Sierra,” I hear Kate say. Beckett says nothing as he steps aside. Kate steps in, and she has a very fresh, blackened eye and a busted lip. She has her son on her hip, and he is clinging to her.

“Ah, shit,” Bella says, but we are all thinking it.

“Holy hell,” Mason says when he comes around the corner to see her face.

“I know you don’t want anything to do with me,” Kate says, trying to hold back her tears.

“Come sit,” I tell her. “What’s his name?”

“Asher,” she says.

“Guys, can you take Asher to the kitchen? I believe we have some ice cream he might like. Would you like that, Asher?”

Asher looks up at his mother, and she smiles down at him. “Go on, baby. They’ll take care of you,” she says, as if there has been a time he wasn’t safe.

“Come on, little man,” Beckett says, carefully picking him up from Kate’s lap. “I have a big decision for you. You ready?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, looking back at his mother.

“Chocolate or vanilla?” Beckett asks, and Asher looks at him. “Or we can be wild and have both.”