Page 30 of The Guilty One

“Can I help you?” she asks before we can introduce ourselves.

“Are you Andrea?” I ask, recalling the name Bradley had attached to his Facebook relationship status and in his obituary.

She nods, crossing her arms and keeping the screened door shut between us.

“We’re old friends of Bradley’s. We went to school together. I’m Tate, and this is Dakota.” I watch for a hint of recognition in her eyes, but there is none. “We were so sorry to hear about him passing.”

“We wanted to come to the funeral, but we didn’t hear about it in time,” Dakota adds. “We’re a few hours away. I live in Groff Park and Tate’s outside of Dale.”

She nods slowly but still doesn’t open the door.

“Anyway, we can just leave these here, if you want. We’re sorry to have bothered you. We wanted to give our condolences in person.” I move to set the flowers down, and she slowly opens the door, stopping me.

“Were you still in contact with Bradley?” she asks, her quiet voice trembling.

“I wish I could say yes, but the truth is we’d lost touch. We hadn’t spoken in years,” I admit. “But we were very close in college. I wish we hadn’t let it go so long.”

“He never mentioned you. He didn’t really talk too much about his past,” she says, studying me. Her eyes dance over my features slowly. My face burns under the intense scrutiny. “But…he has photos of him and his friends from college. I think I recognize you from some of them.”

I give a soft smile and scratch the back of my neck. “Yeah, probably. We were pretty much together all the time. Same sports and clubs. He was roommates with our other friend, Aaron. We’d hoped he could come, but he couldn’t get the time off of work.”

She holds her hand out finally, taking the flowers from me. “Well, thank you. It was kind of you to come. Really. You didn’t have to.”

“Oh. It’s the least we could do,” Dakota says. “Bradley would’ve done the same for us.”

She smiles softly but doesn’t respond.

“I…I hate to ask this,” I say, “but…can I ask how he died? Was he sick or…” My heart races in my chest as I wait for the answer, or for her to tell me it’s none of my business.

“The police think it was a robbery gone wrong.” Her voice cracks, and her tired eyes line with tears. “He was here. My daughter had a dance competition in Savannah, and I’d taken her, so we didn’t get home until late. We came home and found him in the kitchen. He’d been…” She touches a hand to the back of her head gingerly, eyes staring—remembering—in horror. Without finishing, she clears her throat and blinks away fresh tears. “There were no signs of forced entry, but we left the doors unlocked all the time.”

“Was there anything taken?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “No. Nothing we could find, anyway. We don’t have a lot of money. I don’t understand what they were looking for, but whatever it was couldn’t have been worth his life. There’s nothing here worth dying over. He would’ve just given it to them.” Her voice cracks again, and she covers her mouth. “I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “No. I’m so sorry.” My hand goes out toward her as if I’m going to touch her arm, but I think better of it and pull my hand back as I picture what she said. “Do you…do you have security footage? Any way to have seen who it was?”

“No.” She sniffles, wiping her nose. “We’ve never had any trouble. It’s a quiet neighborhood, and we just never thought it would happen to us.” With a dry, regretful breath, she adds, “God, how naive does that sound?”

I nod, assuming as much, but I had to ask. “It’s not your fault. I’m just so sorry he’s gone. Is there anything we can do? Anything we can help with or get for you?”

She shakes her head, still not opening the door all the way. She doesn’t trust us completely, and I can’t say I blame her. “No, thank you. We’ll be okay. He’d want us to be okay.”

“Bradley was a good guy. He really loved you.”

Her brows quirk down. “I thought you said you hadn’t spoken.”

“He must’ve.” I amend my words. “He always said he’d never get married, but from the pictures in the obituary, I’ve never seen him look so happy.”

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes as we say goodbye and head for the truck.

“What do you think?” Dakota asks once we’re inside.

“Well, I don’t think she knows anything.”

His lips pinch together. “I don’t know. I don’t trust her.”

The words aren’t shocking, but I don’t know what to do with them, so I say nothing as we pull down the drive and away from the house of the brother we’ll never see again, the brother we failed.