Free Death Cache by Tiffinie Helmer

revealed that helps us figure out anything. What does your wife’s death have to do with this? Nadia’s little sister? It’s all fucking bullshit.”
    “It speaks to character,” Mac said. “We’re made up of our experiences. They are the fires that forge who we are. What are you made of, Robert? Or should we call you Wyatt?” Mac stood impassable, his thick muscled arms crossed over his chest, the stern, tightness of his face speaking louder than words. The warrior was in charge, and Robert must have recognized that there was no way out of this particular game.
    Robert’s skin blanched. “Fine. Let me see that.” He took the offered printed page, glanced at it. His shoulders dropping. “I was seventeen. It was fifteen years ago. Road conditions were bad, ice fog was thick. I never saw the other car.”
    “What happened?” Tern asked when he paused long enough to make her think he wasn’t going to finish.
    “We’d been drinking, okay. We were fucking teenagers. I was driving. I was the only one who survived. The others were killed.”
    “How many others?” Nadia asked.
    “I did the time, okay. Plead guilty to vehicular homicide.”
    “Finish it, Robert,” Mac said.
    “Three, okay. My girlfriend, my best friend, and his date. It was prom. We’d decided to double.”
    “Any reason for anyone to still want justice?” Mac asked. “Family members of the ones killed?”
    “It happened in Minnesota. As soon as I got out of juvie, I changed my name and headed north. As far as I know, nobody has a clue I’m here.”
    “Someone does,” Mac said. “Pass the picture around.”
    Reluctantly, Robert did.
    The picture accompanying the articled showed a hunk of twisted metal wrapped around a tree with the headline, Drunken Teen Slays Friends. Tern’s stomach sickened as she passed the newspaper clipping back to Robert. He stared at the paper before crumpling it in his hand. “Who the fuck is doing this?” His voice broke. He stood and stomped a few steps away, giving the group his back.
    Silence settled over the camp until Lucky spoke, his tone subdued, “I killed my best friend too.”
    Robert slowly swiveled around and stared at Lucky as he continued. “We were climbing the north face of Monte Blanc. Wicked granite walls.” He paused, breathing deep as though gaining courage to continue. “The rigging broke. I’d checked all the gear the night before. Everything seemed fine. But…it didn’t matter in the end. Hansen was dead.”
    “This is ridiculous,” Tern said. “These incidents are all tragic accidents.”
    “Maybe if I had double, triple checked the gear, I could have saved him. It was my responsibility. It was my gear. I’d talked him into the climb. He wasn’t as experienced as I was. He trusted me, and it got him killed.”
    “That’s enough.” Tern jumped to her feet. “Accidents happen.”
    “Mine was no accident,” Gage said, a finality in his voice.
    Tern slowly sank back onto the stump, her heart thudding in her chest. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to know what Gage had hidden from her. This whole game, the big reveal, had been building to what Gage had kept from her.
    “I killed my brother-in-law,” he said. “And if I could, I’d kill him again.”

C HAPTER E IGHT
    “Want to know where I went six months ago?” Gage asked, almost daring Tern to ask. “Jail, on murder charges.”
    Silence cut the group. It was like someone had pushed the mute button on the remote. Even the chickadees, high up in the birch branches, ceased their chirping. Either that or Tern’s hearing refused to take in the conviction of his words.
    He couldn’t have killed someone.
    The man she’d loved wasn’t a murderer. Besides, if he had killed this brother-in-law, he’d be in prison, not free and here with them now. There had to be more to the story. It was a struggle, but Tern found her voice. “Tell us.”
    Gage arrowed in on her, the fire in his eyes making her