“Thanks, Sawyer. I … I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Brynn said as she released herself from his embrace. “I, um, I need to move some laundry along. I’ll be right back.” She could feel her voice quivering, her throat going dry. But Sawyer just nodded at her.
Brynn went into the mudroom and opened the washing machine. She grabbed some dirty clothes from the hamper and threw them in, just to make some noise to cover up the sound of her own shortened breaths. Her fingers trembled as she pushed the buttons to start the machine. She had to remind herself to breathe. She peered out of the mudroom to make sure Sawyer was still where she’d left him. He sat at the kitchen island, scrolling through his phone.
She needed a moment to think. She needed a moment to process what she’d just seen: Ross’s boat keys. Brynn looked up at the spot on the wall where Ross always hung them. It was empty. How long had they been missing? She hadn’t even noticed before. She silently screamed at herself for not having checked sooner. She knew that Ross kept his keys there. How could she not have checked? Had they been missing this whole time? She felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, as though her feet were leaving the floor and she was hovering above the ground, about to crash down at any moment.
If Ross had been the one to take his boat out that night, as the satellite phone had indicated, Brynn had no doubt that he would have brought the keys back and returned them to their spot. Ross would never misplace them. It just wouldn’t be something he’d do. Ever.
And then she remembered too that as Ross had said, he never would have taken his lucky derby hat off the boat. But if Sawyer had been on Ross’s boat, he would have been able to get his hat, and then plant it—or give it to Pete to plant instead. Or to Mauricio.
The video footage of Ross was too dark to see exactly what hat he had been wearing—that could have been any hat. But the one that had been sealed up in a plastic evidence bag that she’d held in her hands at the police station—that one must have been taken off the boat. Brynn was so mad at herself for not having been smart enough to realize this then, when Pete had first shown it to her. How could she have missed it! She could have spoken up and unraveled the lie then and there. But now, it was too late.
Brynn took her phone from her back pocket and hastily typed a message to Jacob: Get here ASAP. It was Sawyer. He’s here.
“Need some help?” Sawyer asked, peering into the mudroom, startling her, just as she was putting her phone away.
“Oh, thanks, no, sorry.” Brynn slammed the machine door shut and turned it on. She brushed past Sawyer into the living room and swept Lucas up in her arms.
“I, uh,” she said, fumbling her words, “isn’t your mom coming?”
“Brynn, do you need to sit down?” Sawyer asked. He got up from kitchen stool. “You seem sort of out of it. I think you should have some water, maybe rest.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just tired, like you said.” She looked at Sawyer closely. She always saw him as the Sawyer she used to know: the boy on the docks in Menemsha. The black sheep of his family. Good, but misunderstood. Fumbling, free-spirited, but endlessly kind and sweet.
Even when she’d made her decision to be with Ross, and to turn her back on the past, she couldn’t help but see Sawyer and feel something. But now, all she could see was a man she didn’t know. Someone she might not have ever known. Had she always been blind to who he really was? Or had he changed somewhere along the way? The boy on the docks—did he exist the way she’d seen him, or was he something she’d conjured up because she’d needed him at the time? Or had he changed into this person because of her?
Brynn suddenly wished she could call Margaux and tell her not to come. She had to protect her now, even if it meant keeping her from her own son. There was no time, though, because just then, the door opened, and Margaux burst in.
“Hello?”
Brynn and Sawyer looked at each other. Brynn wasn’t sure, but it felt like Sawyer knew that something had shifted between them just in the last few moments. She ran to the door to see Margaux, and to look at the hook on the wall where Ross hung the keys. They were now back in the spot, as if they’d always been there. For a moment, Brynn wondered if they had always been there. Was she sure she’d only seen them moments ago in Sawyer’s pocket? She was so tired—was it possible that she’d imagined the whole thing?
Her mind reeled with what to say to Margaux, with how to get her alone to explain. It all fit together now, she thought: It was Sawyer who had killed Cecelia. It was Sawyer who had dumped her body out to sea. It was Sawyer who had plotted and planned this, having stolen one of Ross’s golf clubs so that he could then plant it as the first major piece of evidence against his brother. And he’d done it all for Henry. He’d done it all because of Henry, to cover up all the horrible things he’d done so many years ago, because Henry was too much of a coward to truly come forward, and too much of a coward to take his own life. Sawyer had done it so that Henry would finally approve of him the way he’d always approved of Ross. He’d done it to hide the secret contained in the letter. And—perhaps—he’d done it so that he could rob Ross of the life he’d had and take it for himself. He’d done it, somewhat, for Brynn.
“Margaux,” Brynn said. Her voice was shaky. She wasn’t sure what her plan was—should she blurt out the truth to Margaux right now, in front of Sawyer? Or should she pretend that she knew nothing? She couldn’t go to the police; she knew that much. Maybe she could call the FBI. She hadn’t heard anything from Jacob. And what would Jacob be able to do, anyway? Even though Brynn had found the orange sun, and the letter, it still—after all this time—wasn’t enough to prove Ross’s innocence. All she really had was her own theories.
The only thing Brynn knew for sure was that she had to protect Lucas and Margaux. She couldn’t let Margaux be implicated in anything. Ross had told her to keep her out of it all, and she owed that to him.
“Margaux, will you help me with something in the nursery?” Brynn asked. “I want to take Lucas’s temperature, and you know how much he squirms around.”
“Oh, sure,” Margaux said, unloading her purse and washing her hands in the kitchen sink. “You said though that you wanted to talk to both of us. Brynn, what’s going on?”
“I, uh, I just wanted to make sure you were both okay,” Brynn said, almost stuttering. Margaux and Sawyer shared a look. “Really, the truth is that I just didn’t want to be alone. I’m having a hard time.” Brynn saw them both soften at the lie.
“Brynn, you are not alone. We’re here for you. We’re going to get through this together, remember?” Margaux held her by the shoulders. Brynn nodded. “Now, let’s go take that baby’s temperature.”
Brynn looked back at Sawyer as she and Margaux headed upstairs to the nursery. She couldn’t see the key fob poking out of his pocket anymore. Once upstairs, Brynn gently directed Margaux into the bathroom instead of the nursery.
“Margaux,” Brynn whispered as soon as she shut the door. “I … I need to tell you something.”
“Okay … what is it, Brynn?” Margaux looked concerned. Brynn was used to this look from people by now—it was a look of both pity and perplexity.
“I think I know what happened. To Cecelia. I think it was Sawyer. I … Basically, Henry told Cecelia something that he did a long time ago. He … well, I know this is going to sound crazy, Margaux, but he killed someone—a man, someone working for him—twenty years ago. It was an accident on the job, but he covered it up. And then, for some reason, he told Cecelia about it. I think he felt like no one would listen to him. He obviously regretted telling her, and had Sawyer kill her.”
Margaux frowned. “Okay, this is … a lot. But, Brynn … then how do you explain the security camera footage? Or the golf club?”
“I … I don’t know. But someone took Ross’s boat out that night. And Sawyer has the keys. I saw them. He must have forgotten to put them back right away. And the hat—the hat they found at the club—it was from Ross’s boat. He wouldn’t have taken it off the boat.” Brynn was talking so fast that she was nearly breathless. “I know this sounds … Well, it’s a lot to take in.”
“It is,” Margaux said. “It’s a lot. I’m just … I’m not sure I understand. What do you mean, Henry killed a man twenty years ago? And kept it from me all this time? You think he’d be capable of that?”
“Yes, Margaux, I do,” Brynn said. “I now think he’d be capable of killing someone.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Margaux said. “I meant, do you really think he’d be capable of keeping something like that from me for all this time?”
It was subtle, and sudden, but Brynn felt it. It was an unmistakable change in the air between them. Out of everything Brynn had just said, all Margaux had heard was that Brynn was still underestimating her role in the family.
“No, I mean…” Brynn wasn’t sure what to say, or what Margaux was getting at. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’ve been kept in the dark.”
“Like some fool?” Margaux asked. “Like a woman whose husband has committed crimes that she had no idea about?”
Brynn knew that the comment was directed at her. She was the one with a husband behind bars right now, not Margaux. Until Ross was proven innocent, she was the fool, if anyone.
“Margaux,” Brynn said, “not like a fool. Like a loving and trusting wife and mother who was blindsided by a manipulative husband.”
“Well … why don’t we just ask Sawyer, then?” Margaux suggested. Brynn was surprised. She wasn’t scared of Sawyer; she felt, perhaps stupidly so, like he would never hurt her, or his mother. But she was scared of what he might say. “Come on.”
They walked back downstairs. Sawyer was in the kitchen right where they’d left him, drinking a seltzer.
“Sawyer,” Margaux said, “Brynn wants to ask you something.” Brynn had never felt this kind of chill from Margaux before. Margaux was obviously mad at her, and letting her feel the brunt of it now.
“I … Did Henry force you to do something, Sawyer? To Cecelia? I won’t think it’s your fault. Just … tell me the truth. Did he make you do it?”
Lucas cried; Brynn was holding him tightly to her chest. He could feel how hot she was getting, how anxious. She needed to stay calm for him, but how could she right now? How could she do anything right now besides panic? She bounced him gently as she walked, trying to stay close to the door, deciding whether she could run out of there, and how.
“Brynn,” Sawyer said, looking at her straight on. “Henry didn’t make me do anything. No one did.”
“Sawyer,” Margaux interjected, “let’s explain some things to Brynn. I think it’s time.”
“What? What things?” Brynn could feel her heart beating faster.
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Margaux continued. “You’re right about some of it. I want to tell you the truth, I do. But I need to know that I can trust you. I need to know that you are going to stay committed to this family.”
“I’m just trying to find the truth. Figure out who killed Cecelia, and why. If Ross really did this … then I won’t stand by him. But if he didn’t … if there’s a chance that he’s innocent, like he told me he is, then I need to see that through.” Her own words were starting to sound like meaningless noise.
She glanced over to the mudroom to check again that the boat keys were there.
Brynn blinked. Could she be certain that she’d seen the keys in Sawyer’s pocket just moments ago? Why hadn’t she bothered before to check the hook and see if the keys were there or not? There were so many details she realized she’d probably been missing along the way, but she’d been so tired, so distracted. So busy being a mom.
“Okay, then,” Margaux said. “Sawyer knows all this already. He’s really been my rock throughout all this.” She smiled at her son in a way that Brynn had never seen her smile at him before: with approval. Validation. Recognition. What he’d always wanted from her, and from Henry. The things that had usually only been reserved for Ross.
“Years ago,” Margaux continued, “we had an accident on one of our jobs. It was tragic. Just terrible. A young man was working with an excavator and there was a machine malfunction. Something none of us could have predicted or prevented. Just one of those … accidents.”
So Margaux knew. She knew all of it, all along. Brynn nodded, acting as though this was new information to her.
“It was no one’s fault,” she said. “We take on risks in construction. That’s what you sign up for. We must accept the consequences of those risks. And that’s what happened to this man. He knew that getting hurt was a possibility.”
But he didn’t just get hurt, Brynn thought to herself. He died. He was murdered.
“The thing was, no one else would see it that way,” Margaux said. “To anyone else, we knew that it would look like it was our fault, somehow. Like we could have prevented it.”
“But if it was just an accident … Henry could have called the police,” Brynn said.
“Yes,” Margaux responded, a little too loud. “But there was nothing we could have done. The man was dead. It was involuntary manslaughter. Operating heavy machinery without an up-to-date license. We thought about going to the police, of course. But think about what would have happened if we’d done that. Think about what would have happened to our family, Brynn. The boys were just coming into their roles in the business, things were coming together for all of us. We couldn’t just give that up. Throw it all away. And besides, it wouldn’t have changed things. It wouldn’t have brought that man back. We had to accept what had happened and move on.”
Brynn couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But what was more remarkable was the way Margaux was telling her this. Margaux spoke as if she truly didn’t care, as if she felt no remorse whatsoever, as if another human’s life meant nothing to her. Only moments before, she’d called Margaux to protect her, to help her. There was no way, she thought, that Margaux—a mother—could have known what Henry had done and stood by him.
“This man,” Brynn said. “Who was he? Did he have a family?” She imagined what Gabriel might have thought when he first got hired by Nelson & Sons. Henry had surely shared with him his own stories of arriving on the island with little to nothing. The man had probably looked at him and thought, I want that life. Someday, I can have that, too. But they stole that from him.
Margaux gave her a confused look.
“We don’t know,” she said. It was clear to Brynn that Margaux had never wanted to know. It didn’t even matter to her. To Margaux, Gabriel meant nothing. To her, he didn’t have a name. He never even existed.
“So you chose to protect your family,” Brynn said.
“Exactly, Brynn,” Margaux said. “We made a pact that no one could ever know. Even the boys. We wanted to protect them—and you—by keeping it from you. The only reason Sawyer knows now is because Henry … well, Henry broke that pact.”
“He told you?” Brynn asked Sawyer.
“No,” he said. “He told Cecelia. And then Ross and I found out because she was going to blackmail him.”
“I’ll never understand why he told that girl so much,” Margaux said, with anger in her voice. “I don’t know why he always talked to her instead of me. I’m his wife. She was just some girl.”
Brynn couldn’t believe how inhumane Margaux sounded—how detached from all human emotion. That girl … Margaux had known Cecelia just as long as any of them, and now Cecelia was dead. Her language scared Brynn. But at the same time, there was a tiny part of Brynn that understood what Margaux was saying. How hurtful it must have been to have had her longtime husband turn toward someone else for compassion and comfort instead of her.
“I gave everything to Henry,” Margaux said. “I sacrificed things for him. My body, my time, a chance at my own career. I suppose that’s what all mothers do, in a way. Men will never understand the sacrifices we make to give them children. And this is what he did for me in return? He betrayed me, our entire family. And for what? To get something off of his chest? To share our deepest secret with some girl who was practically still a teenager?” She paced around, her arms crossed. “You know, Brynn, Henry really is losing it.” Margaux’s anger was palpable. It radiated from her.
And the truth was, Brynn knew that Margaux had given her entire life to Henry and his plan. She’d worked tirelessly for him, and with him, and without him, to build a life for their family that he’d always wanted. And Henry had chosen to betray her, whether or not his intentions were good. Whether or not she was good. He’d still turned his back on her.
But Margaux’s coldness and her utter lack of humanity frightened Brynn to her core.
“I know that you would have done anything to protect this family, Margaux,” Brynn said. “But why did Cecelia have to die, too?”
“I’ve had to make choices that … that might be hard to understand, Brynn. But you must know that it was all for you, right?” Margaux smiled at her—a smile that felt so misplaced that Brynn actually grimaced in return. “I did what was best for us. I only wanted to keep the family together and for everyone to have what they need. I wanted my children to have the best life possible. What mother wouldn’t do anything to make that happen? That’s what mothers do, right?”
Brynn nodded.
“You’d do the same thing, Brynn. Now that you’re a mother.”
Brynn wanted to scream that she’d never do what Margaux did, but she knew that she had to keep her talking. There was still so much more she needed to know.
“So,” Brynn said, gently, “what happened with Cecelia, then? What was she going to do?”
“She was going to destroy us, Brynn,” Margaux said. “She was. I had to stop her.”
“What did you do?”
“Henry came home that night,” Margaux said. “I knew right away that he’d done something terrible. That he’d made a mistake. I can always tell. He started crying. He said he’d let it all slip. He’d told Cecelia everything. To clear his conscience? It was entirely selfish of him. Reckless and selfish.”
Margaux paused and looked out the window; then she turned back toward Brynn.
“But he did say that there might be a chance to salvage things,” she said. “He thought that we might be able to pay her to stay quiet. It seemed that Cecelia wasn’t as well-intentioned as we all thought. She wanted to take advantage of Henry’s vulnerability. So, I went to talk to her myself. To make a deal.”
“That night? You were going to pay for her silence?” Brynn asked.
“Yes,” Margaux said. “And if she’d just taken it, we’d all be fine right now. I offered her money—quite a lot of money. I thought that’s what she wanted, after all. That’s the whole reason she was at the club in the first place. She wanted in. But I was wrong. She said she didn’t want a penny from us. She said she wanted nothing to do with us, that we were disgusting to her. Can you imagine her telling me that?”
Margaux’s voice was shaking, and Brynn could see the vein on her forehead protruding.
“It was very hurtful, what she said,” Margaux continued.
Brynn remembered what Jacob had told her about Cecelia planning to extort Henry, to take the awful truth and use it to her advantage. Turns out, he’d been wrong. Cecelia had changed her mind. In the end, she was going to do the right thing. This island might have killed her, but it hadn’t destroyed who she was at her core. It hadn’t ruined her. Cecelia had been good. But it had been too late.
“I understand,” Brynn said, trying to keep Margaux engaged, “and so … what happened? Was it Mauricio who did it? Did you pay him to help you?” Brynn was still trying to figure out who was on the security footage. She was desperate for Margaux to say that it was anyone but Ross. But at this point, there was simply no other explanation.
“Mauricio?” Margaux asked, confused. “He wasn’t involved.”
“So, then, it was Ross? Just tell me! Were you all in on it together?” Brynn felt like she was back at square one.
“You have to understand something else,” Margaux said. “Before all this, before Henry spilled his guts to Cecelia, we learned that Ross was building a case against us. Our own son. He had told Henry that he had to come clean, and if Henry didn’t do it himself, Ross would do it for him. He’d been collecting evidence against us—his family! The people who gave him everything.”
“How long had this been going on?” Brynn asked. “What do you mean collecting evidence?”
“Oh, come on, Brynn, you know,” Margaux said. “Ross was digging up anything he could on his father and anything he’d done wrong in his business. And then, Ross found out about the man, from twenty years ago. I think … I think that was too much for Henry.”
“What do you mean, too much?” Brynn asked.
“Henry couldn’t handle facing that again. When Ross brought it up and told him that he had to turn himself in … Henry was no longer willing to choose his family over the truth. You’ve seen it yourself … he’s been losing it.”
“Or maybe he’s just been feeling guilty,” Brynn said. “Maybe he wanted to confess. He wanted the truth to come out. He couldn’t live with the lie anymore.”
“Well, I obviously couldn’t let that happen,” Margaux said. “You know, it’s always the women who are strong enough to make the tough decisions. The ones no one wants to make. But they’re the decisions that keep families together.”
“So, what did you do?” Brynn had been bouncing Lucas up and down to try to keep him calm. It wasn’t going to work much longer; she could feel him starting to claw at her chest for milk. “Did you make Ross kill Cecelia?”
Margaux stared into her eyes, assessing her, probing her. Brynn knew that the one thing Margaux truly would fight for was her family, especially Lucas. Margaux couldn’t lose him, which meant that she couldn’t lose Brynn. She had to let Brynn in, finally. She had to tell her the truth.
“Brynn,” Margaux said. “I thought you’d have figured it out by now. No. Ross didn’t kill Cecelia. But my own son who I birthed, and fed, and took care of, and who I gave everything to … he was ready to turn his back on all of us. He was ready to throw us to the wolves. He was ready to do something even worse.”
“But then … I still don’t understand,” Brynn stammered. “If Ross didn’t kill her, then who did? What happened? Is the security footage from the club fake? Did Pete doctor it to frame Ross?”
Brynn felt the vibration of her phone in her back pocket. She couldn’t look at it now, as much as she wanted to. She had to keep Margaux on track. But her stomach dropped as she imagined the possibilities. What if it was Jacob, telling her that Pete had intercepted him and was on his way instead? Or—the worst of all—what if something had happened to Ginny and her baby?
“I just wanted to have a civilized conversation with Cecelia, I really did,” Margaux said. “But she was being crazy. Unhinged. Irrational. Even after I offered her a very, very generous deal. The girl should have taken it. She was foolish. I couldn’t talk sense into her. I could feel things just … slipping out of my control. You know how that feels, right?”
Brynn did know how that felt. She knew exactly how that felt—to have everything you thought you knew to be true ripped apart, to not know where to turn or what to do. That’s how she’d felt since Lucas was born. But it made Brynn sick to hear Cecelia being talked about this way, while her lifeless body was underground and while her family still mourned.
The kitchen sink faucet had been dripping. Margaux turned her back to Brynn and went to turn it off. As Brynn watched her go, she noticed the way her legs moved and the way her shoulders remained squared off, the way the flat of her foot hit the floor with each step. She and Ross really did have the same build and the same gait.
And then, it hit her.
“Oh my God,” Brynn whispered. “The security footage isn’t fake. It was you. It’s not even Ross on the camera at all. It’s you.” Brynn had always thought that Ross and his mother looked strikingly similar and had the same build. Sometimes she even felt strange looking at Margaux; it was as if she were looking at an alternate version of her husband. But she’d never, ever considered this a possibility.
Margaux turned around slowly and faced Brynn.
“You killed Cecelia,” Brynn said.
“It’s not what you think,” Margaux said, calmly. “I never planned to kill her. And I never planned to frame my son. But this girl, well, she was being so irrational. She was scaring me, Brynn. I happened to be standing right next to Ross’s locker. I took a golf club out just to … protect myself. And it was cold, so I put on a jacket and a hat.”
Margaux paused, the holes in her story becoming more and more visible. She looked at Brynn closely, as though to ensure their bond before she said anything more.
Brynn imagined this—Margaux making the conscious decision to reach into her son’s locker, to disguise herself with his clothes, to arm herself for battle. She wondered if in that moment, Margaux had remembered Ross as a baby. She wondered if she remembered when and where he took his first steps, or when he first said mama, or when he broke his arm in the fourth grade, or when he was six and he insisted on her reading Where the Wild Things Are over and over again until he fell asleep. All the things that Brynn could picture unfolding in the future for Lucas—the good and the bad—that she’d be there for. Or, at least, that she hoped she would.
“But … how did things escalate?” Brynn asked. Even now, there was a part of her that was hoping Margaux would say This is all a misunderstanding. We had nothing to do with Cecelia’s terrible death. Brynn didn’t want to believe that Margaux was capable of doing what she knew she was about to admit. She didn’t want to believe that anyone was.
“I swear, Brynn, I thought that Cecelia was going to hurt me. She started to come at me, and I … I didn’t know what she was going to do. I swung at her. Just once. Only once.” Brynn thought she detected remorse from Margaux, a moment in which she thought Margaux might break down and cry. Maybe the first moment in which she realized the gravity of what she’d done, the permanence of it. But instead, Margaux stiffened and pushed her shoulders back. “It was self-defense,” she said. “Nothing more.”
Brynn could hear the thud of the golf club against Cecelia’s skull, the cracking of her bone, the ripping of her flesh, the sticky dripping of her blood. The vision of Ross running toward her came to life now, in her mind, but this time, he slowed down and paused, and he craned his head to the side, and then turned his body back toward the security camera. It wasn’t Ross. It never was. It was Margaux. Margaux, in her own son’s jacket. Margaux, with the same build and the same gait, the sturdy and confident physique that she’d passed down to him. Margaux, who had spent countless hours caring for Lucas, soothing him, loving him, while Brynn had been somewhere else, asleep, her trust entirely placed in Margaux’s bloodstained hands.
“We didn’t plan to do it,” Sawyer chimed in. “It was an accident, Brynn.”
“What do you mean we?” Brynn asked. Sawyer had remained unusually quiet while Margaux had spoken.
“Well, I wasn’t going to leave my own mother all alone with this,” Sawyer said, as if that were the most normal response in the world. “She needed my help. It was an accident.”
“You didn’t even think to call the police?” Brynn asked. “Sawyer, we knew Cecelia. She was a human being. She was … she was … How could you?”
“Come on, Brynn,” Sawyer said. “It really was an accident. Self-defense. My mom is not a murderer. But the police would never believe us. It looked bad.”
“How could we ever have explained it?” Margaux asked. “Everything would unravel.”
Even now, it seemed like Margaux had confidence that her plan would work, that she’d get away with it all, and that she and Henry could continue on with their perfect family and reputations intact. Ross would be the only one to bear any consequences.
“But … Ross,” Brynn said, “how could you let him just take the blame when he had nothing to do with this?”
“How many times do I have to explain this?” Margaux was frustrated now. Brynn had never seen this side of her—flustered, angry, the bitter, blunt end of her emotional fuse gnawed down to nothing. “Ross was plotting against us. And all the while, everything he had was because of our hard work. Why can’t you see that, Brynn?”
Brynn wished that Ross had gone straight to the police once he’d found the letter. Everything could have been different. Cecelia would still be alive. Except, maybe not. The police might not have believed him. And a body might not ever be found.
Margaux continued. “He was going to take Lucas—and you—away from us. I don’t know why he hadn’t yet. But he was planning to.”
“We couldn’t let him destroy everything, Brynn,” Sawyer said. “And you were having such a hard time. We were also thinking about what was best for you. Ross hadn’t been there for you like he should have. We all know that. You needed more support than he was giving you.”
“Don’t even try to involve me in this,” Brynn said. Sawyer might have been right, that Ross certainly hadn’t been there for her when she’d needed him most, but that didn’t mean he should be in jail for something he didn’t do.
“It just made sense,” Sawyer said.
Made sense? Brynn thought. The way he said it was so nonchalant, as if he were talking about picking a convenient spot for a coffee date. Not putting his own brother away for a murder that he didn’t commit.
“So, you … you came here, to my house, to steal Ross’s boat keys, and then you went and took Cecelia and dumped her off of Norton?”
“I’m not saying that I did or didn’t,” Sawyer said. “But that would be a heck of a plan, wouldn’t it?” He smiled at her. The same smile he’d always given her. She only noticed now how crooked it was, how sinister.
Brynn was starting to piece it all together. She couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it before. It all made sense now. It was all so clear. Sawyer and Margaux weren’t geniuses. They’d just planted the right evidence in the right spots and spun the perfect narrative. Almost perfect.
“And the hat you planted at the club,” Brynn said, “the one Pete showed me at the station? I know you got that off the boat. And that makes no sense. Because Ross only kept that on the boat. Why would he ever go back to the club and drop that hat there?” Brynn knew what she was saying made sense, and yet it was such a small glitch in all the evidence they had compiled against Ross. She still didn’t have enough solid ground for anyone else to believe that Ross was innocent and that his own family had orchestrated this against him.
“Maybe so,” Sawyer said, “but I don’t think anyone’s going to worry about that now.”
Brynn’s phone rang again, but she couldn’t answer it. Her heart sank. She pictured Ginny in the operating room, crying, trying to reach her. Brynn had to get out of here, away from these people.
“Listen,” Margaux said, “Ross was going to take us down anyway. He had already decided a long time ago to betray his family. Do you think you two would have this house if not for my hard work? I gave him the life he has—the life you have—and he was ready to throw us to the wolves.”
“But we didn’t plan to set him up, Brynn,” Sawyer added. “Ross had been digging through all of our dad’s stuff. He was onto him. And whatever he found, he was going to use it to take us all down. And now … maybe this is how things were meant to be. Maybe we can all move on from this together.”
“Sawyer is going to take over for Henry,” Margaux said, matter-of-fact. “He’s always been better suited for the job. And Ross … he’s not innocent, you know. He might not have killed someone, but like Sawyer said, he was going to betray his own blood.”
“You really came up with the perfect plan,” Brynn stammered. “You silenced Cecelia forever and then you silenced Ross by putting him in jail. And now … what? You’re just going to act like everything is okay? Take over the business? Act normal? Pretend to be happy?”
“Yes. And you are, too, Brynn,” Margaux said. “I know this is hard to accept. It’s a lot to take in. It’s painful. I know you might not understand all the decisions I’ve made. The actions I’ve taken in the best interest of my family. But you will. You’re a mother, too, Brynn. This is what mothers do.”
Brynn had a decision to make, except she’d already made it. Long ago.
“No, Margaux,” she said. “It’s not what mothers do. It’s what killers do.”