Page 63 of Tangled Past
Footsteps rushed toward her from the bedroom that they used as a command post. Asa. Almost as if he sensed her danger.
He stopped short beside her when he saw the man standing there.
Asa didn’t hesitate before raising his weapon. “Don’t move,” he ordered.
The man laughed. “You sound like your father.”
Asa staggered back half a step. “No!” The word tore from him.
The world narrowed as Maya tried to understand what was happening.
Asa’s voice broke. “No!”
The man tilted his head. “You really didn’t know?”
Maya pressed a hand to her mouth as understanding slammed into place. Asa knew the killer.
The man turned to her, his expression cool and assessing. “I let you live,” he said sadly. “That was my mistake.”
Asa raised his weapon, his hands shaking with rage. “Say your name,” he demanded.
The man smiled. “My name? You know it, Asa,” he said, stepping closer, “I’m your Uncle Jonas.”
Something ancient and irrevocable snapped into place. For the first time since the barn, Maya understood the truth with terrifying clarity. The monster had never been a stranger—he’d been someone Asa and Raymond both trusted.
???
For a split second, Asa thought the world had tilted.Not metaphorically. Not emotionally. Physically, like the floor beneath his boots had shifted just enough to throw his balance off.
His uncle. The man with whom he had shared his father’s case notes. The one who had been like a second father to him since Raymond’s murder.
All the while, he was speaking to the man who had taken his father’s life, and he was probably the one who had killed Vanessa and those other women.
The lighthouse beam swept the room, catching his uncle’s face. Not the same as the kind uncle he’d known all his life, but close enough that Asa’s chest locked tight and refused to release air.
The eyes were wrong. Too cold. Too measuring. But the structure—the bones, the angle of the jaw, the way the light caught the lines at the corners—those were familiar in a way that made his stomach twist violently.
Uncle.
Murderer.
He’d led him straight to Maya. Asa had no doubt his uncle had been tracking their movement through his phone.
Asa tightened his grip on his weapon, arms locked, stance drilled into muscle memory—just like his uncle taught him. He didn’t lower it. Didn’t raise it. He held it steady because if he moved even an inch, he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t pull the trigger.
Maya made a slight, broken sound as the truth dawned on her as well. Asa felt it like a hand closing around his spine.
Asa didn’t look over at her. He couldn’t. If he took his eyes off Jonas for even a second, he might lose control of something he wouldn’t be able to get back. “You killed him,” Asa said, each word scraped out. “You killed my father.”
Jonas exhaled, as if bracing himself. “Yes.”
The confirmation landed harder than any denial could have.
Asa’s vision tunneled. Heat roared in his ears.
Every memory—every late-night conversation, every lesson, every quiet moment at the kitchen table—collapsed inward, crushed beneath that single word.
“You don’t get to say it like that,” Asa snarled. “You don’t get to stand there and say it like it was a decision you weighed.”
