“Noah.”
My voice barely came out.
“He did this.”
Behind me, my brother said:
“I know.”
I turned.
“What?”
Noah was staring through the rear window.
Not at me.
At the riverbank.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“Look.”
I followed his gaze.
Adrian had reached shore.
A second vehicle waited near the old maintenance road.
Beside it stood a woman beneath a hooded raincoat.
She ran toward him.
He caught her.
She threw both arms around him.
Then kissed him.
My brain refused to understand what my eyes already had.
The woman pushed back her hood.
Vanessa Hale.
My half-sister.
Eight months pregnant.
She had told me the baby’s father was a man who disappeared after a short relationship.
I understood the lie immediately.
The child was Adrian’s.
Vanessa turned toward the river.
Toward us.
There was no horror on her face.
She knew.
That hurt more than the water climbing toward my waist.
“Noah.”
“I see her.”
“I brought both of them into our lives.”
“We’ll discuss your terrible taste later.”
I turned on him.
“Later?”
“Yes.”
The water reached the bottom of his wheelchair.
