House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (23 page)

“He saw Holston and
Gunnar wrap Elizabeth’s body up in a damn bag, and Holston shut him up. Holston
told him what happened to Elizabeth, but Ryan knew his dad couldn’t take it. So
he left ten years ago and never looked back.”

“And he didn’t want
to get mixed up in it again,” Delaney finished, feeling incredibly confident
that he had made the right decision and that she could have quite possibly made
a huge mistake. She was in too deep, the mess too entangled to back out now.
She needed to get to Ann, and Evie was the only way to do it.

“It’s better this
way,” Evie replied, her voice soft now.

“Do you love him?”

“I want to.” Evie
paused, the hum of the road below them. “But it’s hard to with this lingering
feeling that no matter what you do, no matter who you love, he’ll take it all
away.”

“That he’s always
watching, waiting,” Delaney added. Evie was right. It needed to end so they
both could move on with their lives. Delaney’s phone buzzed in her pocket.

“James?” Evie asked.

“No,” Delaney
replied, scanning the text from June. “Just a colleague, letting me know about
President Givens.”

“So the word is out,
I guess,” Evie said.

“I guess so,” Delaney
replied, texting back a generic “I can’t believe it statement.”

“What do you know
about your childhood?” Evie suddenly asked, her hands still rotating on the
wheel as she waited for Delaney to respond. It was a pent-up question, a
conversation that Evie had played over and over in her mind.
As if she
knows.
Amberg was a little over ninety minutes away.

“When I was three, my
mom packed a bag and drove, just the two of us, down to Milwaukee to stay with
my aunt and uncle. My dad arrived three years later with Mark and Ben, my newly
adopted brothers, in tow. Mark was ten. Ben was six. I later learned that their
father drank himself to death over his wife, who we now know as Florence.
Apparently, she left him for a guy in a Mustang. She supposedly ran off to
California to become a tattoo artist. Florence didn’t exactly look like a
skilled artist, if you ask me.” Delaney paused, contemplating whether Florence
had any other tattoos beside the rosary before she continued, “It was a
relatively normal childhood other than the incident with Richard Rowan. I never
told anyone about that, though; I never had the nerve to.”

“But Gunnar knew,”
Evie interrupted, following the timeline in her head. She was making mental
notes, something Delaney was apt to do herself. She hadn’t said anything
particularly interesting to Evie, though; she was looking for something more,
something to tie her suspicions up into reality.

“I’m still not sure
how he knew. I only told a few close friends in high school, James being one of
them. Then I went off to Madison where I finished my degrees and then landed
here, unfortunately. I was an asshole for thinking that I could actually have gotten
a job at Leighton on my own,” Delaney finished, looking at the freshly sprouted
fields. The rows of vegetation lined the fields, making green, never-ending
sweeps that disappeared into the sky. She was beginning to hate Wisconsin.

“What do you remember
before you were three?” Evie asked, finally turning her head to Delaney. The
shadows of her eyes fluttered beneath the aviators. It was a question Evie had
been waiting to ask.
Evie knows.

“Well,” Delaney
cleared her throat, sorting the details out through her mind. She recounted her
father’s words, his weeping and anguished face. She hated Evie for already
knowing. “My father just told me this morning why my mother took me away.”

“The fire,” Evie
whispered, barely audible through the blowing of the stale, now frozen, air.

Goose bumps spread
across Delaney’s skin like a disease, the hairs all over her body rising with
the flesh bumps. Delaney reached for the AC, turning it until the blowing
became a slow, tolerable trickle.

“How did you know?”
Delaney stammered, her mind trying to connect the invisible dots.

“I just found out, if
it’s any consolation. I was in the library when you called me. I was searching
the newspapers for anything noticeable in 1988, the year I was adopted, and it
just so happens that your family’s house burned down that year, when I was
two.” Evie paused, glancing at Delaney to see if she had made the realization
that Evie had made herself earlier in the library.

It was the type of
realization that struck you in the deepest and most vulnerable place, reaching
inside you and twisting your insides until you begged for it to stop. Yet the
damage had been done, and there was no turning back. There was no undoing what
Holston had done. So Evie’s insides wrenched more until it had made her
exceedingly sick in the bushes lining the outside of the library. She vomited
in the expertly-pruned boxwood near the entrance as a white-haired woman
wobbled her tennis ball-bottomed walker past her, pausing to clear her throat
before disappearing through the glass doors. Evie wanted to slam the tennis
balls down her throat, shoving them deep into her gut.

By the look on
Delaney’s blank face, the consciousness wasn’t coming yet. Evie considered
swerving the car over for Delaney’s sudden awareness of the reality that tied
them together. Evie hesitated before she broke the silence of the car.

“Three bodies were
found. Anna Jones, age two. Seth Jones, age five. Owen Jones, age five. Little
Anna Jones’s body was charred beyond recognition. Only Delaney Jones, age
three, survived,” Evie said slowly, the words marinating her mouth like some
spoiled, rancid meat that had been left in the sun.

“What are you trying
to say?” Delaney finally whispered, her mind ticking like a bomb waiting to
explode. It was there, on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t want it to be
true. Theron’s words last spring ringing in her ears as he spoke of his captor,
s
he reminded me of you
. Delaney’s body reluctantly turned toward Evie,
the sudden possibility creeping into her being like an infestation of a cluster
of spiders.
It can’t be
.
She couldn’t possibly be.

“I’m your sister. I’m
Anna Jones.”

28

June 17 - 12:14 p.m

Neither of them spoke
a word. The silence hummed between them, lingering like the pungent odor of
sulfur water found in the houses of the rural countryside that they passed.
Delaney could almost taste it, the rotten egg flavor choking the back of her
throat. Her hand fumbled around at the door handle until it finally found the
button, the window flying down with a softened buzz. The wind whipped through
her hair, the air flushing through the small compartment. It didn’t stop the
spinning, the streaming consciousness flashing through her mind. She felt her
body jerk as the car swerved onto the gravel of the shoulder.

Delaney pulled at the
door handle before they had even stopped, the Focus skidding along the gravel
in a cloud of dust. She crunched onto the stones and heaved in front of her,
splattering a multi-colored array. Evie had a knack for making her puke.

Delaney wiped her
mouth with the back of her hand, the dizzying realization still waving through
her body. Her first reaction was to venomously deny the accusations like any
normal person would. It couldn’t possibly be true. She hadn’t thought of the bodies,
the charred skeletons of their small bodies. The bodies of the little siblings
she couldn’t remember; the playmates she was sure she had once loved. They
would have assuredly played in the barn together, chasing cats and petting
calves, running through the fields and playing hide and seek behind the stalks
of corn. She closed her eyes, trying to remember anything from when she was
three - their faces, their names, their voices - but nothing came. Instead, she
imagined the blackened bodies, smoldering in the ashes. She hadn’t thought of
the bodies before Evie had mentioned it. Ann and Michael Jones would have had
to identify them, but how closely had they paid attention? The little girl
burned beyond recognition, but the body could only be their little baby Anna.
But
how?

Evie’s voice
stretched from inside the car, the passenger door still gaping open as she
leaned onto the passenger seat. “We don’t have much time.”

Delaney waved her
hand behind her back, unable to turn her body to look at Evie’s face; her pixie
nose and high angular cheek bones. The face of a woman whose being was so
inconsequential to her so-called “father” that she had stayed small, almost
child-like. As if Evie had never grown into the woman she was supposed to
become. Holston Parker had stunted her, wrecked her in a way she couldn’t even
possibly imagine. Evie’s impossible conclusion had to be true.

Delaney needed
another minute, more time to go over the details in her head.
Evie was Anna
Jones. Evie was her sister.
Delaney tried to wrap her mind around the
possibility. This morning, Delaney had awoken with two adopted brothers. Then
three dead siblings arrived and now, a living, breathing woman claimed to be
the dead sister she never remembered in the first place.

She tried to steady herself,
her legs as heavy as stones. She willed them to move forward, but they stayed
firm in the gravel, her body retching one last time. Her insides empty of any
substance, empty of any emotion. She didn’t even know how to
feel
at
this point. Her life spun in reckless circles like a goddamn
Lifetime
movie, the kind of interconnectedness so ridiculous that it sucked any viewer in.
A train wreck begging you not to look, but you looked anyway, despite your
better judgment. The horror and tragedy finally shockingly numbing you until
you can’t feel anything anymore. Delaney was there. She had arrived. The
impossible had become possible. She wondered how her
Lifetime
movie
would end.

Cars and trucks
zipped passed them, a honk streaming down the highway as Delaney finally felt
her legs moving her back to the open door and to a waiting Evie. Delaney
crawled onto the cloth upholstery, the softness brushing against her legs as
she settled in. The wheels spun, kicking the vomit stained stones into the
ditch below. They sat in silence, both faces fixed straight ahead, avoiding the
impossible conversation that neither wanted to have.

The acidic taste
burned in Delaney’s throat and mouth; a thick layer of bile perpetuating into
her nostrils as she finally opened her mouth and then closed it without
speaking, unable to start the conversation.
Would anyone know how to start
it?

“I did the same
thing,” Evie finally offered. “At the library, in the bushes with an old,
crotchety lady’s eyes on me. She and her walker disapproved.” Evie finished
with a small laugh. It was the first time Delaney had heard the sound from her
mouth; it was different than the serious, cool tone she lived by. Evie slowly
pulled up her sunglasses, letting them rest on top of her head. The short
spikes cut through the thick frames.

“Old bitch,” Delaney
muttered as she exhaled; the acid stung her throat.

The silence returned,
hanging in the air as Delaney listened to the low hum of the air conditioner.
She reached for the knob, but Evie’s hand beat her to it, turning the dial
half-way. Delaney pulled her hand back, setting it on her lap as she felt the
cool breeze circulate her body. She let her head fall back on the head rest,
her body finally melting into the seat.

“We’ve got less than
an hour.” Evie looked down at her phone resting in the cup holder between them.

“How do you think -”
Delaney started. She stopped, the image of the little skeleton burning in her
mind.

“He did it?” Evie
finished. “How does he do anything he does?
Why
does he do anything he
does?”

“I don’t know. He’s a
fucking psychopath.”

“True.”

“How did you know? I
didn’t put the pieces together.” Delaney finally turned to Evie, studying her
profile. A light dusting of freckles scattered her cheekbones where the sun had
soaked into her skin. Just like Delaney. Just like
their
mother. Evie’s
eyelashes fluttered, sensing Delaney’s gaze. Evie finally turned, meeting
Delaney’s eyes. The translucent blue eyes that stared at Delaney in the mirror
now looked back at her. Evie had the same eyes as her. Delaney imagined Evie’s
cropped hair long, the rich brown color streaming down her back.

“It’s wavy when it’s
long,” Evie offered.

“It’s just hard to
wrap my mind around. I just didn’t see it before,” Delaney whispered.

“I didn’t believe it
until I read the article in the paper, even though he told me that we were
sisters.”

“When did he tell
you?” Delaney’s voice rose. She thought of Theron, the threatening messages
Evie had left her, the games she had played, putting Delaney’s life in peril,
just to get to her father. No one would do that to their sister.
How long
did you know?

“At the cabin. Ethan
brought me there after we escaped from the hospital where they removed the
bullet from my arm. It was a cabin along Lake Michigan that my father had owned
for a long time. Close to Amberg. We went there because I remembered seeing a
picture of my mother, the drug addict mother he told me had died. I never
believed the story, for the record. I had always held onto the thought that she
was alive. I wanted to believe that she was out there somewhere. That someone
loved me. That she could get me through this, that she would be able to help
me. I think it was my only saving grace in a shitty childhood that made me hold
onto hope. I found the picture,” Evie said as she opened the middle console.
She held the console door open, waiting for Delaney. “Go ahead. Take it.”

Delaney looked inside
the compartment, the picture of a woman in a waitress uniform smiling back at
her. Delaney reached in, feeling the thick, glossy photo paper between her
fingers. The woman’s red lipstick was moist, recently applied. Her brown hair
pulled back, her familiar blue eyes filled with happiness and a vibrant youth
just below her broad, sweeping forehead. Her face was rounder, her cheeks
containing a supple plumpness. Her full breasts bulged beneath the tight pull
of the cotton dress. Her nametag read “House of Steel.” It was her. A younger
version of Ann Jones.
Their
mother.