The air whooshed out of my lungs. I had known he hadn’t done it, but still, hearing how it had happened filled me with enormous relief, followed by fury at his father. I shook my head. "That was how you stabbed yourself? You fell on your knife?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Then, Bridge, of course, couldn't let it go, so he took the knife from my hands and started hacking at my hair and gave me a close shave in a couple of parts."
Bridge ducked his head then and mumbled, "Sorry about that."
Milton shook his head. "No, that was on me. But anyway, the police came and Bridge was arrested. Since I was bleeding, I was taken to surgery. I don't know what happened to Pip."
Bridge mumbled. "She's fine. She's in America now, married with a couple of kids."
Milton nodded. "Oh, yeah? Good for her."
Bridge’s shrug was nonchalant. "I kept tabs on her after I got out of the neighborhood."
"I always wondered what happened to you. When I came back to the neighborhood, you were gone. Your mum said you went to school, but I just figured you'd gotten stitched up somewhere."
Bridge shrugged. "Might as well have been stitched up."
"Anyway, I got myself cleaned up and started going to school, regular attendance, and all that. It turns out I wasn't such a sod after all. Now here I am, finally practicing law and at the same time helping other kids like I once was when I can."
Nyla leaned forward then. "Okay, since you were both juveniles…"
He nodded. "Yeah, no one has access to those records."
I could hear the slight Irish in his accent. Like maybe he'd grown up with an Irish parent.
"Other than that, is there any other way anyone would know what happened?"
He shook his head. "No. I mean, unless someone knew Pip, she maybe told them what happened. I was humiliated, so I didn't tell anyone. Bridge, unless you did?"
Bridge shook his head. "No, I didn't."
“A couple of years after it happened, I'd gotten into school on a scholarship, and some kid came around. He wanted to know what had happened that day."
We all sat forward then. "What did he look like?"
"I don't know. It was so many years ago. Tallish. Maybe not quite his full height, but more like my height now, five-ten or so. Light brown sandy hair. I'll tell you what though, his eyes, they were dead."
I frowned. "That's exactly what Antonia said. Did he give you his name?" I asked Milton.
He shook his head. "If he did, I don't remember. Anyway, he asked about you. But maybe he used your current name. I don't remember. He said he'd heard that there some kid that stabbed another kid in this neighborhood, shaved his head for real, like blacked-out shit. And I was just, you know, coming through it. You do the therapy thing and get yourself together, and I didn't think he was a whacko. I didn't tell him the story, but he was spurting off bullshit about how one kid stabbed the other like ten times or something. So I told him it was wrong, that the other kid was an idiot who fell on his own knife. There was no stabbing. There was an attempt at an involuntary haircut though. I think that's what I said." He shook his head. "I don't remember it that clearly."
"There's nothing else you can tell us about him?" Nyla asked.
Milton shook his head. "No. I mean, he was posh. Like really posh. He was dressed in trainers and jeans and whatnot, but you could tell from the accent, how he spoke like he was bloody Prince William or something."
A chill ran down my spine. Because it sounded like the same person that Antonia spoke about.
"His eyes were gray, you know, like normal. But the way he had asked if one kid got stabbed ten times or not, he was almost excited. Gleeful about it. I remember thinking there might be something wrong with him. I went back to work and stopped talking until he went away. I never saw him again."
Bridge, Nyla, and I exchanged glances. "It was the same kid. It had to be.”
"Was he maybe pretending to be young?"
Milton shook his head. "Nah. When he came around, I was maybe fifteen. He was younger than me. Face like a baby's bum. Probably hadn't started shaving it."
There was no way it was Bridge's father. Bridge's father had hair as dark as Bridge. He did have light blue eyes though, and maybe, if the weather was bad, they could appear gray. At the same time, it didn't match. Even then, Milton would have been able to tell a man from a boy.
We all thanked him for his time and then headed out. Once we all climbed in the car, I turned to Nyla. "What the fuck does this mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything yet. It just means we have a lot of unanswered questions. But maybe if we get all of our heads in it, someone came here looking for that story, and that same person may very well have been the person who has stabbed Melissa. I don't think it's a coincidence."
Bridge slid into his seat and then leaned his head back. "It was probably the same guy.” He sighed. “I was transported back to that time, you know?"
I touched his hand. "Are you all right?"
He nodded. "I haven't been that kid in a long time. It's been over twenty years. But I don't know, being transported back doesn't feel good."
"The real question is, who was that kid who came asking? And why did they use that incident to make it seem like you'd hurt Melissa?"
Even as he leaned back in the backseat with his eyes closed, I could see the vulnerability in the furrow of his brow, the lock of his jaw. "I'm still not sure why someone hates me enough to frame me for murder."
Twenty-Nine
Emma
Bridge was quiet after we met with Milton. I could feel it. He was withdrawing. Again. I knew he had to process everything. Process what Milton had told us and who the fuck Willem could be. There was something we were missing, and it was eating at all of us. I went back to work, to take a couple of client calls, but I was distracted the rest of the day. When I met bridge back at London Lords, he was clearly out of it. He forgot his phone, then his keys, and had to go back for them. On the way home, he realized he’d also forgotten his wallet, but he said it didn't matter. It would be there in the morning when he went back.
What was really sad was that I couldn't say anything to bring him peace. I knew he was hurting. I knew he felt lost. I just had no words because this shit was so fucked up.
Dinner was a quiet, tense affair. We'd eaten what the housekeeper had left and, he'd been mostly focused on his phone. I checked in with mum and then updated Livy. After dinner, he'd given me space and said he needed to get some work done. But I figured he wanted to brood. He brooded so well. I decided to give him a solid hour and a half to sit with his feelings.
It gave me a good opportunity to explore the mansion. Most of the bedrooms were on the top floor. There were several guest quarters on the property which held their own bed-bath combos and small kitchenettes. The main house had ten bedrooms, three in the servants quarters, and seven in the main quarters, each with its own bathroom of course. There was also an upstairs sitting room, a game room, and a theater. And surprisingly, a craft room. Apparently, April Van Linsted had a little crafting hobby. Who knew?