Rowan squeezed him harder. “They’re fantastic women. Strong and smart.”
“And seeing Dad so old. Is that how I’ll look in thirty years?”
She laughed. “Probably. Trust me, it could be a lot worse. He looks great for his age. Both him and Mom. We’ve inherited good genes.”
They sat silently for a long while as Thor lay on the floor, watching them with attentive eyes.
“Do you want to talk about . . . them?” Rowan asked. “Jerry was arrested five years later. No one knew there had been two men.”
“Looking back, I realized there had been two men with us while we were blindfolded,” Malcolm said. “Liam wore red laces in his hiking boots. Jerry did not. I’d see the boots below the blindfold sometimes.”
Rowan sucked in a breath. “I remember.”
“Liam got Jerry arrested. He bragged about it.” His body started to violently shake, and he covered his face with his hands.
“What is it?” Rowan asked, aching to take away his fear and hurt.
“They made me do awful things, Rowan. If the police ever find out, I’ll go to prison.”
She sucked in a breath. “What did they make you do?”
He wiped tears from his face. “Liam killed two women while I was there. I don’t know how or why he did it. I knew better than to ask questions, but he made me dig a grave and help him bury them. I’m an accomplice, Rowan. There’s no getting around that.”
Rowan straightened. “You said ‘a grave’ but two women. They were in one?”
He nodded. “Two women in the same grave a couple years apart. I must have been eighteen or so. Liam made me help him take them through the forest in a wheelbarrow. It was so hard. It’d take all day.” He took a long breath. “The second time, he made me dig up the grave of the first woman, saying it’d be easier to put the second there since the dirt would be looser. Oh my God, Rowan. The smell of that old grave . . .”
“He forced you, Malcolm. You had no say in the matter. No district attorney would dream of bringing charges against you. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“That’s not all,” he whispered.
She waited a long moment as Malcolm struggled to form words to continue his story.
“There was a boy. Elijah,” he finally said. “He was ten like me. They made us fight like they did with you and me.” He cried, tears dripping on her arm across his chest.
She squeezed tighter, knowing the story wouldn’t end well.
“They killed him and made me help bury him, Rowan. I never even got to know him. All I knew was his name and age. They kept us apart. I wanted so bad to have someone else there with me.” He shook his head. “But why would I wish that hell on someone else? I’m a horrible person.”
“No!” She took his head in her hands, turning it toward her. The pain in his eyes broke her heart. “You were a lonely and abused child. It’s normal to feel that way. There was nothing wrong with you.”
“I see his face every day, Rowan. It’s my fault he’s dead. I don’t know what I did to make them choose me over him.” He took a shuddering breath. “But there were many days I wished I had been killed instead.”
“It’s not your fault, Malcolm. Those men are responsible for their own actions. They killed him, not you. And I’m so glad you’re alive. You made it out of there and back to us.” She wiped his tears, crushed that he’d been consumed with such dark thoughts. “Were the two women buried near Elijah?”
He nodded.
She hugged him again. “We found their bodies, Malcolm. I thought the boy might be you, but now because you know his name and age, we’ll be able to tell his family and give them some closure. Not knowing if someone is dead or alive is torture.”
Malcolm exhaled heavily. “I’ve carried the image of his dead body with me for years. I thought I was digging my own grave at first.”
“Oh, Malcolm.” Rage flashed and hatred for his captors filled her. She continued to hold him, and they sat like that for a long time. “It’s over,” she’d occasionally whisper.
His head started to droop, and she encouraged him to go to bed.
She slowly moved down the stairs, her heart heavy, Thor beside her.
Will he ever be able to heal?
43
The next morning, Rowan was playing fetch with Thor in her backyard, unable to get her conversation with Malcolm the night before out of her mind.
He was back. That was all that mattered.