“Please tell me that bitch isn’t getting out of prison anytime soon,” he said.

I knelt beside him. Like his sister, he’d been taught from an early age that he had no value. No intrinsic worth.

My torso felt too tight as I inched toward him. “Can you tell me what happened, Marcus?”

“Why do you care what happened to her?” he asked. “Nobody cared. My mother only reported her missing because a neighbor started asking questions. She’d been gone more than two weeks.” He looked up at me. “Can you imagine that? Two f**king weeks before she even considered calling the cops.”

“Marcus,” I said, putting a palm softly on his knee.

He had the towel in both hands, wringing it until his knuckles turned white. Dredging up the memories was taking its toll on him. He took the bottle off the sink and tilted it at his mouth, swallowing at least one more before setting it aside and covering his eyes with one hand. “We’d been evicted and were living in my aunt’s house while she tried to sell it. She married some rich guy from California and said we could stay there until it sold.”

That explained why Miranda was in that part of the city. The property around where she’d been found was upscale, and Mrs. Nelms didn’t strike me as ever having money.

“Something wasn’t right,” he continued. His hand clenched around the towel. “She was acting different. She kept saying she wanted her sister’s house but couldn’t afford it—then this man in a business suit came over and I heard them talking. My mom was buying life insurance on us.” He lowered his hand to look at me.

The bathroom had more light, and I could finally make out the color of his eyes. They were hazel green.

“She was going to kill Miranda. I knew it. From then on, every time she looked at her, she had this smile.” He wiped at his cheeks. “No, this smirk. And she started talking to me about everything we were going to do with the house. She wanted a pool and a wet bar and a big TV. She said if her sister could have nice things, so could she. Then one night, she came into our room. Told us to get dressed. Said we were going to the lake. It was the middle of the night in the middle of January, but she wanted to go to the lake.” His gaze slid past me. “She was going to kill her.”

I sat as still as I could and listened. He needed to tell the story. Miranda’s story.

“But we weren’t packing fast enough, and she hit Miranda. Hard. I just remember blood. So, she told me to forget the lake, that she was going to take her to the hospital, but I knew that was a lie, too. I took Miranda and snuck out the back door. We were just going to hide until morning, until I could get help, but it was so cold. We didn’t have our jackets. And it was so dark. We stumbled around, just trying to find somewhere to get warm when it started to snow. Miranda said she couldn’t go any farther, so we huddled next to a rock.” Fresh tears pushed past his lashes and streamed over his sunken cheeks. “She fell asleep in my arms and didn’t wake up.” He covered his face and bit back the sobs fighting to get past his closed throat. “I tried to carry her, but she was so heavy. I just left her there. Like she was nothing.” A sob finally wrenched its way past his efforts, and he covered his face again.

“No,” I argued. “Marcus, you were only nine.” I swallowed past the lump in my throat and reached up to cradle the back of his head.

“I finally found my way back to my aunt’s house the next day. Mom didn’t even ask where we were.” He cast me an astonished glare. “She didn’t even ask about Miranda. Not once. Days passed, and we just never talked about her.”

I bit my bottom lip, wondered what my chances were of getting the rest of the pills away from him. He tipped the bottle again, and I realized he had no intention of leaving that bathroom. Ever.

“And then a neighbor asked about Miranda?” I said, inching closer.

“Yeah. She figured she couldn’t hide her disappearance much longer. She had to report her missing. That’s when she told me to lie. To say Miranda was in her bed the night before and then was just gone the next morning.”

I didn’t dare blame him for lying. He was living with a monster. He clearly feared for his own life. But at the moment, I was more afraid for his life than he was. The drugs were taking the desired effect. He leaned his head back and let them swallow him whole.

I took advantage of the situation and reached for the bottle.

“Please, don’t,” he said. He seemed tired. Spent. “You won’t succeed.” A sadness settled over him as he picked up the bottle again. “It’s okay. No one will miss me.”

“You’re wrong.”

His laughter felt hopeless in the tiny room. Humorless. “Don’t worry. This isn’t some pathetic attempt to pretend to try to commit suicide only to make sure someone is close enough to call an ambulance in the nick of time.” He held up the bottle, shook it to prove to me there was still one left. “This is my own version of Russian roulette.”

“I don’t understand.”

“In the center of one of these pills, and I have no idea which one, is a lethal dose of cyanide. So I take one every so often.”

I gasped and ripped the bottle out of his hand to check the label. Oxycodone. But I had no idea if that was what was really in there or not. I looked back up, gaping. He wasn’t lying.

“The way I see it, if I’m worthy of living, I won’t get the lethal one. If not…” He shrugged and leaned his head back again.