Page 52 of P.S. I'm Still Yours
Realization seems to slap her in the face.
“Hadley, I… I’m so sorry we couldn’t make it to the funeral.”
I shake my head. “You and Cal were all alone and taking care of your father. Don’t worry about it for a second.”
She cringes. “Still. I wish I could’ve been there for you.”
“I know.” I flash a grateful smile. “I appreciate it.”
“Did they…” She pauses, carefully choosing her words. “Did they ever catch the guy?”
Anger rises in my chest. “No.”
In all fairness, they didn’t have much to go on.
You’d think the fact that we had outdoor and indoor cameras recording the whole thing would’ve made for an open-and-shut case, but it was night when the murderer’s van pulled up, and the quality was so bad we couldn’t even make out the license plate.
I can still see the passenger-side door flying open and the masked man jumping out before booking it inside the store. He was packing a gun under his jacket.
To make things worse, the cameras my mom had installed didn’t have audio. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference. Or… maybe it would’ve changed everything.
For all we know, we would’ve recognized the killer’s voice. Or been able to trace it back to him based on the conversation he had with Gray.
The footage inside the store shows the dirtbag running his mouth while pointing his gun at sixteen-year-old Gray, who stood behind the counter with his hands in the air and gut-wrenching panic on his face.
My mom didn’t allow me to watch the rest—because it fucked her up emotionally and mentally—but from what she told me, the bastard got Gray to dump the content of the cash register into a large bag.
After that, he rushed to the door to leave, giving the impression that the nightmare would end there.
That’s when Gray said something under his breath, a look of shock and realization plastered to his face.
It was a few words, at most. No one could tell what, thanks to the blurry, pixelated footage, but it made the guy stop dead.
The shitbag didn’t move for a few seconds.
Then he turned around.
And shot my brother in the head.
Gray died instantly.
I remember my mom’s desperate cries late at night. The way she would call his name and beg for her boy to come back when she thought I was asleep. When she wasn’t asking for her son back, she was asking for answers.
And we got some, but nothing of real substance.
The detectives later found the van from the surveillance tapes abandoned in a ditch, and after running the plates, it came up as stolen. They did pull fingerprints from the car, but none were registered in the database, making them useless.
Mom wound up hiring a private investigator once it became clear the cops weren’t going to solve the case. She worked day and night behind the very counter where her kid was murdered just so she could afford the investigator’s services, but nothing came of it.
Whoever killed my brother is still out there, walking free while Gray is rotting away underground.
“That’s fucking horrible.” Jamie’s features twitch with a hint of rage, but I refuse to match her reaction. I almost drove myself mad with anger. I’m not doing it again.
I quickly change the topic. “Can you believe the last time I was here, Gray and your dad were still alive?”
She lets out a bitter laugh. “And Kane wasn’t a famous asshole. Did you know he ghosted all of us?”
My jaw goes slack.