Echo(35)

It wasn’t any less painful to read the articles now, five years after the fact. The stories about the family outing that turned deadly when a drunk driver hit them and left them for dead down the side of an embankment. But the coroner’s examination confirmed that wasn’t the case. The only two passengers who died instantly were Katherine and Jackson. Between the time of the accident, and the time the ambulance arrived two hours later, the little girl had also succumbed to her injuries.

It was the reason why one of the charges was upgraded to murder. But there were still so many unanswered questions. Like the shell casings found at the scene, and the evidence that led back to Brayden. When they brought him in, he tested positive for gunshot residue, but he wouldn’t tell them why. They never did find the gun when they tore our house apart, so I had thought it was a mistake.

But these reports held so much more details than I ever knew. Brayden’s footprints were matched to the ones at the scene. There was also DNA collected from the vomit beside the car. It was undoubtedly his. I didn’t understand it. I didn’t understand any of it. He was there that night, but why?

At the bottom of the stack were photos. Photos of the family together as one. And my confusion bled out when I saw a young Ryland standing side by side the smiling faces of the family. Only his name wasn’t Ryland. It was Jacob. And he was a part of that family.

My heart beat so hard I thought it might explode. How did I not see it?

 It was there all along.

Except, it wasn’t really. He’d hidden it from the world. Changed his name and his story, only allowing people to know what he wanted them to. The news never even mentioned him. I didn’t know he existed because he kept it that way for a reason.

My body burned with guilt and shame and a thousand other emotions I couldn’t pinpoint. The further I dug, the worse it got.

Full investigation reports, witness statements, hospital records. But as my eyes passed over them, everything blurred together. They couldn’t be accurate. Because they said Jacob was in the car too. But that was impossible. Every news article stated there were four victims, including his father. But according to hospital records and witness statements that wasn’t the case.

“Jacob Ryland Lockhart was finally able to free himself from the wreckage and climb to the freeway for help, despite being critically injured. When the ambulance reached the family fifteen minutes later, they found him unconscious as he clutched Sophia Lockhart’s hand in his own. She was dead upon arrival, and all efforts to revive her were unsuccessful. The only remaining survivors were Jacob and his father Michael.”

 Tears poured from my eyes like acid, burning my skin as the image of Ryland like that broke the last ounce of strength that held me together. I couldn’t take anymore, but I couldn’t stop myself either.

At the bottom of the box, I found a Manila envelope, sealed up tight. I picked it up with trembling hands and broke the seal, revealing more photos. Photos I wouldn’t ever be able to erase from my memory.

A little girl’s leg dangling from a ballet tight as it mangled with protruding metal. A bloody hand on the door handle as though it were trying to escape from the wreckage. A mother slumped over the steering wheel with an unrecognizable face. A mass of metal so crumpled and distorted, the type of car was completely indistinguishable. And finally, three bodies covered with white sheets in a ditch.

I couldn’t look anymore. I didn’t want to. But when I heard a sharp inhale of breath behind me, I turned to see Ryland standing over me.

Stupidly, I tried to thrust everything back into the box. To get it out of my sight and pretend that this had never happened.

“By all means…” He kneeled down beside me. “Don’t stop on my account, Brighton.”

I whimpered and shook my head as he picked up the photos of the mangled body parts and thrust them into my face, demanding that I look at them.

“I want you to really understand,” he said. “I want you to digest it all.”

A bloody tutu skirt and the haunted expression of a lifeless little girl stared back at me from the glossy photo.

“I listened to her choke on her own blood for thirty minutes,” he said calmly. “Do you know how long thirty minutes is, Brighton?”

I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen him this way, and it was breaking my fucking heart.

“Thirty minutes of her crying for me to help her. I had to tear the flesh off of my chest to reach her.”

A sob escaped me, and I closed my eyes and begged him to stop. To put the pictures away.

“Do you know why?” he continued ruthlessly. “Why I watched her die a slow and painful death? Why I sat with the lifeless faces of my brother and my mom while I waited for an ambulance that wasn’t coming? Or why my father willingly ate the barrel of a gun six months later?”

“It wasn’t Brayden,” I said weakly. “He would never do that.”

“Wouldn’t he?” he asked. “Because he was in the car that night. And if I recall correctly, he was also the one to walk down the embankment and hold the barrel of a 45 against my skull.”

I blinked up at him through bleary eyes, shaking my head uncertainly.

“Oh, Brighton,” he barked out a strange laugh. “You poor, dense little girl. All these years you’ve lived with the real monster and you didn’t even know it.”

“No,” I denied his accusation. “He would never do that!”

“I know you’d like to believe that,” he replied. “But it’s in his blood, Brighton. It’s in your blood too.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Frank Gallo was your father,” he explained. “Otherwise known as the low-level scum who did the dirty work for the Chicago crime family.”

I blinked up at him, trying to digest his words while he waited patiently. I’d known my father was Italian, but my mother only ever referred to him as Frankie. But when she did, it was the only time I’d ever seen a shadow of fear pass over her face. Just like when Brayden started hanging out with his new friends. I didn’t think we had anything to worry about, but she did. And suddenly, I understood why. It was a possibility my mind had never even considered before, but Ryland sounded so certain.

“You think Frankie asked Brayden to do this?” I rasped.

“Yes,” he sneered. “The one and only.”

“But he must have forced him,” I argued. “Brayden would never take part in something like that by choice.”

“Wouldn’t he?” he snapped. “What about the code, Brighton? Family and honor. That’s how it goes, right?”

His words chilled me. Because it was the very thing Brayden had mentioned before he went away. He said he would do this. For his family and for his honor.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought… I thought…”

“Well you thought wrong,” he growled, pulling himself back up to his full height as he looked down at me with pity. “Because Brayden told me himself.”

“Ryland…” I sobbed. “I’m sorry…”

“You put up a valiant fight,” he said cruelly. “But you can see now that none of it matters.”

“I don’t understand,” I cried. “If you hate my family so much, why are you paying my mother?”

A cold smile fell over his face, and for the first time since we’d started the conversation, he looked at peace.

“Think about it, baby girl. Think really hard. You’ve been playing the game, but you can’t tell me you haven’t given a single thought as to how it would end?”

The harshness in his tone unsettled a startling reality for me. One I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen sooner. How Norma-Jean’s addiction had spiraled further and further out of control over the last five years.

“You… you’re trying to…”

The words wouldn’t come out. I was the last person to advocate for my mother, but that didn’t mean I wanted her dead. And the thought that Ryland had been slowly poisoning her over the years sickened me on a level I couldn’t even comprehend myself.

“Yes,” he spat. “I’m waiting for her to die. I’m funding her descent into hell, and at this rate, it should be any day now. And once that’s done and Brayden has felt the pain I have felt, he will die too.”

The sympathy I had for him only a moment ago vanished somewhere during that statement, and I stood up on wobbly legs, staring him straight in the eyes.

“You did all of this on purpose?” I asked. “You sent him to prison and then had him released, just because you could?”

“You’re finally getting it.”

“That’s where you were last week?” I stared at him in disbelief. “You were the witness that the press wouldn’t print?”

“One and the same.”

“If what you say is true, you could have kept him in prison!” I accused. “You could have done the right thing, Ryland. Gave him what he deserves. But what you’re talking about is no better than what he did.”

“Don’t you ever compare me with that swine.” His eyes blazed with a hatred so strong it gutted me. “If he had called an ambulance that night, Sophia would still be alive. He deserves everything he has coming to him.”