The glance he shot me this time was poisonous. “You really are her son.”

“Yes. I won’t give up trying to find the truth.”

“What? That she crashed her car in a drunken mistake?”

“Hell of a lot of cops for an accident.” I shifted to get out of the car but didn’t exit.

Hemi stared at me for a long time. “Are you sure you want to know the truth?”

I didn’t move.

His laugh was cruel. “Your mother was a stone-cold bitch. She did everything in her power to get me into her bed, then when I gave in and took what was on offer, she threatened to tell Tia. I would have killed her if she’d done it, but Nina had the good sense to keep her mouth shut.”

“She might’ve been a stone-cold bitch, but I don’t see a leash on you.” Screw allowing men to blame my mother for their mistakes. “You had a choice.”

Rage contorted features suddenly outlined by light that spilled into the garage from the internal access door. Ariki—Riki to those who’d known him in childhood—stood silhouetted against that light. Home on a furlough from the army. I’d seen his thickly muscled form earlier in the week, walking up the drive with his camo duffel over his shoulder.

Exiting the car, I shut the door behind me. Riki stepped into the garage at the same time. “Aarav, what are you doing here?” Brow furrowed, expression dark—but that had been standard for Riki since his teenage years.

“I wanted to talk to your father about my mother. He always took extra time with me at school.” Mostly to discipline me for petty infractions. It had begun from around the time I turned fifteen; probably when my mother broke up with him. Either it’d been a power play to remind her he had control over her son so she wouldn’t go through with her threat—or the action of a rejected man bitter that a charismatic and beautiful woman no longer wanted him.

Riki’s mouth stayed flat, his expression unchanging; he’d inherited his mother’s rounded features but not her vivid emotional range. “Yeah?”

He said nothing further until his father had stalked inside the house after saying only “Don’t be late for dinner, Riki,” in greeting.

“Where’s she been all this time?” Riki raised an eyebrow. “Some island paradise, right? Did she hook herself a new rich fish?”

The casual cruelty of his words was unexpected. Two years my senior and a popular high-school athlete, Riki had never been the mean kid in the neighborhood. “You don’t know?”

“Know what?” He ran a hand over his severe buzz cut. “I just got home from a hunting trip. Left two days ago.”

I wondered if he expected me to believe that bullshit; my mother’s return was the biggest piece of news in the Cul-de-Sac. “She’s dead.”

He didn’t even try to fake grief or sorrow. “Sorry, man.” A slap to my upper arm. “I know you loved her. What happened?”

He whistled when I told him. “All this time, she was lying there while we drove past. Unbelievable.”

Everything about his response was off. The tone, the speed at which the words came from his mouth, how he stared blankly past my shoulder.

Rumor was, Riki was in the SAS, the army’s elite special forces unit. Soldiers in the SAS went behind enemy lines to do deadly and dangerous things. That had to have an effect on a person. Maybe this was how Riki always was now—I hadn’t had enough interaction with him as an adult to judge.

A call from inside the house.

“Better go. Mum made roast especially for me.”

“She’s happy to have you home.”

“Yeah. Mums, eh?” Seemingly unaware of the insensitivity of his remark, he walked me out to the main drive.

The streetlights along the entire Cul-de-Sac had been put in place by the developer who’d sold the lots. They were designed to blend in to the environment, the lighting soft. On a balmy summer evening, it gave the area a pretty glow. On a dark winter’s night, with the breeze a cold bite, the small pools of light only emphasized the looming darkness of the forest that whispered all around us.

“I really am sorry, man.” Riki slapped me on the shoulder this time. “It’s tough to lose your mum.”

It was as I was walking back to my father’s house that his words penetrated . . . and my bruised brain disgorged a critical piece of information. The problem was, I didn’t know the dates and how they lined up. But what I did recall with certainty was that Riki had won a major athletic competition at the same time.

Tears had shone on his face as he stood on the podium. Lifting his medal, he’d mouthed, “This is for you, Mum.”

But Tia, proud mama bear and staunch supporter of her children’s activities, hadn’t been in the audience.

Transcript

Session #5

“What I said in the last session—about wearing a skin suit—it bothered you, didn’t it?”

“If you felt that, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t come here for lies. Just tell me.”

“Yes, I was a touch startled, but it was unprofessional of me to let it show and I apologize for that. I hope it won’t affect our working relationship.”

“I’d much rather talk to a real person—I actually feel more comfortable with you now.”

“That’s good to know. Do you want to talk about the skin suit reference?”

“Do you think we should?”

“It’s quite a brutal way to describe having dual identities. Is that how you feel? As if you’re ripping off one persona to reveal another?”

“I don’t think of it as ripping off . . . more like a snake molting. It’s normal for me.”