LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter Thirty-Six

      “Did you hear me, Tessa?” Tristan said.

      I’d heard him. He’d just told me that Dennis Connelly wasn’t the killer, my parents were.

      I heard him say it, and I tried to tell him he was wrong, that he was lying, but shock and fury and disgust formed a block in my throat, choking off my words, cutting off my air.

      “Some of what your parents told you is true,” Tristan said. “Your father was a journalist. He used his press pass to meet politicians and businessmen. Your mom was the special events director at a hotel. She knew when politicians and important people were coming. Your dad used his press pass to meet them too. Then he’d watch all of them with his remote vision. If your dad saw them do something unethical, your parents would contact them anonymously and demand money from them. That’s how they made so much money. Blackmail. Not writing a newspaper column and planning parties.”

      I blinked again, slid farther away from him. He was lying. He had to be.

      And yet he continued. The putrid, rotten lies, each one worse than the last, came spewing from his mouth like vomit.

      “If the victims refused to pay, if they called the police or started investigating who was blackmailing them, your mother would use her PK to give them heart attacks or brain aneurysms. She’d kill people and make it look like a car accident, or illness or suicide.”

      I stared at him and tried to let the words sink in.

      But they wouldn’t.

      Because they were lies. All of them. Every single one.

      “I’m so sorry.” He reached for me, but I slapped him away and scrambled off the cot.

      “You said you would never lie to me again,” I seethed through clenched teeth. “And that is the most vicious lie I’ve ever heard.”

      “I’m not lying. I wish I were.”

      “That man came to our house to kill us,” I said. “My father watched him slice open two people with his mind.”

      “Dennis Connelly has one psionic ability, and that’s telepathy. He cannot slice people open with his mind,” Tristan said. “Your parents built him up to be some kind of all-powerful, indestructible super-villain. They demonized him to keep you scared and obedient.”

      I cringed. That lie was the worst of all. “They would never do that to us.”

      “We have evidence.”

      “No, I have evidence.” I yanked my shirt up. “That man, that monster, did this to me.”

      He touched his fingers to the scars and I flinched. “He didn’t even know you were cut until I told him last week. He thinks you must have gotten cut on broken glass when your father pulled you from the car window.”

      “Does he deny trying to kidnap me too?” I tried to growl it, to sound strong and menacing, but my voice came out high and uncontrolled.

      “He did put you in his car,” he said. “But he wasn’t kidnapping you.”

      “How is locking me in his car not kidnapping?”

      “Eight years ago,” he said, “one of our sensors was in Washington, trying to find psionic people. Doing his job. He walked by your dad at a coffee shop and sensed he had some kind of psionic ability.” Tristan sighed and rubbed his eyes. “So the APR sent Dennis and his recruitment team to your house to talk to him. If they found evidence of psionics, they planned to invite him to the APR for testing and possible employment. While Dennis was outside talking to you, his team went inside to talk to your parents. He put you in his car when he heard what was happening in your house.”

      I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. “And what, exactly, was happening in my house?”

      “Your parents were killing his partners, Tessa. He was just trying to keep you safe. Then he went inside to help his team, but it was too late. Your parents attacked him, too. Your mom gave him a heart attack. He barely escaped alive.”

      The cell fell silent.

      His words echoed in my mind, each one like a punch to the

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