“Let’s all just calm down,” Mom said. “Nobody took your money, Logan. The money to buy this house was a settlement—”
“It wasn’t my fault!” he spat back, then turned to me. His face was red with rage. “Your dad was stupid. What kind of moron steps out in front of a speeding car? This was a setup, he set me up!”
I shook my head in stunned disbelief. Does he really believe my dad died on purpose? The suggestion was as absurd as him standing there waving that knife.
“We don’t want your money,” Mom said. Her voice was steady but tight with fear. “You can have it back. All of it. We didn’t know it was yours.”
“It’s too late,” Logan said. “Don’t you get it?” He suddenly looked exhausted. His lips puckered with frustration. “My dad doesn’t give a shit about you. All this . . .” He waved the knife in the air, indicating the room, the house, all that had become ours. “It isn’t a gift meant for you. It’s a punishment meant for me. You got all this so I would have nothing.”
I raced to put the pieces together in my mind. He killed my dad. So his dad took his money and gave it to us. That’s why he came to my school—to find me and make me fall in love with him. He was never into me. Not even for a second. I couldn’t believe how gullible I had been, believing his compliments and I love yous. He didn’t love me, he despised me. The realization ripped through my heart like a bullet. My disappointment and shame poured out in sobs.
“We didn’t know,” I insisted. “We never would have taken it if we’d known.”
“Why’d you have to keep that video?” Logan asked, eyes boring into my tear-streaked face. “You already had the money, he wasn’t going to give it back to me.”
Mom jumped to my defense. “She had no intention of showing it to anyone—”
“She showed it to me!” Logan snapped back, then raised the knife and shook it at me. “I knew you were weak,” he seethed. “I knew you would show someone. I was never safe from your squealing little fingers.”
“I’m sorry,” I mustered, because he was right. I was weak. Because I did show it to someone. Someone I thought loved me. I cried harder, and Mom squeezed my hand.
“Because she trusted you,” Mom said. “She’s not going to show it to anyone else. We’ll delete it right now.” She snuck a glance at me, and I nodded that I would. “We have nothing to gain by telling anyone it was you,” she reasoned. “Nobody else has to know.”
But he ignored her and laid into me. “You did it to yourself,” he said, his blue eyes boring into mine. He reached behind him and locked the bedroom door, then waved us toward the closet. “Get in the closet.”
“Logan, please . . . ,” I begged. Why does he want us to go into the closet? Dad used to keep guns in his bedroom closet, but we weren’t at our old apartment, and I had no idea where they were now.
“GET IN!” He pointed the knife at me and charged at my throat. Mom grabbed me and pulled me out of its reach.
“OK, OK,” she soothed, one hand outstretched like she was commanding a dog to stay. “We’re going.”
She stood up, then looked at me and squeezed my hand. We’re in this together, the gesture telegraphed. Two are stronger than one.
“Hurry up!” Logan commanded, and Mom made that OK, OK hand gesture again, then slowly led me toward her closet. As she opened the closet door, full of her things and God willing those guns, Logan barked, “Wait!” He peeked in the other closet—the empty “his.” “This one,” he ordered.
Mom’s face twitched with disappointment. And I knew I was right about the guns, that she kept them tucked on a high shelf, between her sweaters and jeans, just like Dad did.
“If it’s the money you want, we can work something out,” Mom said, but Logan just laughed.
“You made it really easy for me by taking all those pills,” he said through the crooked smile I once adored but now made me sick. “When they find your dead bodies, they’ll see there was a history and won’t be suspicious.”
My head felt light as my blood waterfalled into my feet. He was not improvising. He had planned this. Ever since the day he’d taken me out for tacos.
“You’re right,” Mom said, trying one last time to bargain with him. “No one would question if something happened to me. But Savannah, she had nothing to do with this. She’s a smart girl, you could work it out—”