Page 110 of Noctis

I stared at him. An angry flush had crept into his cheeks, but rather than making him look indignant, it only made him appear guiltier. He was sweating as well.

“I think you know something.” I held up the ring. “My mother had this on her finger the night before she disappeared. I didn’t bring it into my house, so the only other person who could have done that was you.”

“Maybe someone planted it. Have you thought about that?”

“And now you’re the one who sounds ridiculous,” I fired back. When anger got me nowhere, I tried a slightly different tack and lowered my voice. “Just tell me what happened.”

Tyler looked down at the floor, his entire stance reflecting indecision. His fingers curled against the edge of the counter before relaxing, only to tighten again.

“If you know something,” I said, “then please tell me. I can’t move on with my life until I know.”

“Sometimes…” He dragged out the word as though hoping that if he did so for long enough, he wouldn’t have to add anything else. “Accidents happen.”

“What kind of accident?” The ice was back, settling over me like a shroud.

“The kind where you argue and someone tries to walk away before you’ve finished saying what you need to say. You grab them, they trip over the rug, and they hit their head.” He lifted his gaze to mine, his expression pleading with me to understand.

For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the blood rushing in my ears. “What did you argue about?”

“She thought I should end things with you. She thought I was only staying with you because I saw you as a meal ticket.”

So she’d told him everything she’d already said to me—everything I’d refused to believe. The scenario assembled itself in front of me. When she hadn’t been able to get through to me, she must have decided it was worth talking to Tyler, hoping she could force him to admit something.

“What did she bang her head on?”

“The corner of the hearth.”

“It’s made of stone,” I stated in a monotone.

“Yeah.”

My mind supplied an image I didn’t want: my mother falling, the back of her skull striking gray stone, her body crumpling onto the rug. I dug my fingernails into my palms, desperate to replace the mental pain with physical pain. “And then you called an ambulance.” I didn’t phrase it as a question because, of course, we both knew he’d done no such thing. If he had, the police would have had a record of it.

Tyler ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in tufts. There was a slight tremor in his fingers when he lowered it. “She was unconscious from the moment she hit her head. Then―”

He looked away.

“Then what?”

“She took three gasps and then nothing. She was already dead.”

“So instead of calling for help, you put her in her car and dumped her in the river?”

He closed his eyes. “I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that it wasn’t worth fucking up my life over an accident.”

“My mother’s death wasn’t worth fucking up your life!”

“Rowan, you’ve got to understand—”

“I don’t have to understand anything.”

He nodded. “I get that you’re upset.”

“Upset?” An inhuman laugh burst out of me. There was no ice left, only a raw, pulsating wound that encompassed my entire being. “I don’t think upset is an adequate description.”

“You’re right. Upset was a poor choice of word.” He levered himself away from the kitchen counter and took a step toward me, his expression beseeching. “I’m just asking you to see things from my point of view.”

I automatically took a step back. “Your point of view.” I kept parroting what he said, but that was because every word coming out of his mouth was absolute bullshit. “You killed my mother.”