Garrett’s family.
“He was preparing to expose them,” Tobias continued. “The following morning, our parents drove to a meeting with their attorneys. Their car went off a mountain road. The police called it a tragic accident.”
“And you were in the car?”
“No. I was supposed to go with them. I got sick that morning, so they left without me.”
He looked at me, and for the first time I saw the fifteen years of grief beneath his carefully controlled expression.
“Three days after the funeral, a man came to the rehabilitation center. He told me that if I ever recovered, you would be next.”
My stomach turned.
“So you pretended.”
“I pretended because I was afraid. At first, I was protecting you from a threat I couldn’t prove. Later, I discovered that my wheelchair gave me something valuable: people stopped being careful around me. They spoke freely in front of me. They forgot I was in the room.”
