"Oh, please," I scoffed. "I think I'd know if I could've killed a sister who didn't exist."
"Oh, she exists," Waverly said. "And from whatIhear, Mason was absolutely livid."
Mason?I paused. "Wait a minute. You're not talking about Willow, are you?"
Waverly smiled. "I don't know. Am I?"
I frowned. "But Mason's her dad, not her brother."
Waverly's smile grew sly. "Oh, really? Are you sure?"
No. I wasn't.
Not a hundred percent.
And for some reason, this shook me to the core.
Ishouldbe sure. Brody and I had been close,reallyclose.
Hadn't we?
But then, I recalled the situation with his parents. He hadn't sharedthosedetails either – not until yesterday at the tail end of our argument.
Plus, for months, he'd been lying to me about how he'd acquired the house.
All things considered, was it reallythatfar-fetched that he'd neglect to mention a sister, too?
No.
It wasn't.
Talk about depressing.
At the table, Waverly said, "See? YouknowI’m telling the truth."
I tried to think. "But even if Willowishis sister, I only met her the one time. And all I did was try to walk her home."
Even as I said it, I recalled Mason's reaction when he'd found us. He'd been angry,reallyangry, like he'd caught me trying to kidnap her or something.
More to myself than to Waverly, I murmured, "They seriously think I would've harmed her?"
The accusation hurt more than it should've. It wasn't like I'd driven up in a van and offered Willow candy.No.She'd literally knocked on my door.
Whether she'd said so or not, she'd needed help getting home. And I'd tried to help. In hindsight, maybe I should've done things differently, but at no time whatsoever had Willow been in any danger – not while she'd been with me, anyway.
I'dbeen looking out for her.
Not the nanny. Not Mason. Not Brody either.
But me, along with Cami.
Even now, I still had no idea how Willow had ended up on my doorstep in the first place.
If I had to guess, I'd say it had something to do with the house across the street, like maybe she'd hitched a ride with one of her brothers and had been forgotten in some sort of confusion.
Brothers?
Oh, God. Brody was her brother.
