Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) by Debra Gaskill Page B

“Wasn’t there any time he had to produce his birth certificate? If he was two years behind you, he started college at age twenty.”
                  “Yes, he did. Said he was eighteen.”
                  Every shiny high school memory was now tarnished and stained. The golden brothers I’d known all these years—the politician and the hockey player—were liars. The stories we’d written, following Rick and Rowan’s individual rise and fall in their very different fields, were at their heart, untrue. This was a side of the Mr. Clean Golden Boy I’d never seen and I didn’t like it one bit.
                  “How could you? Why would your whole family keep up this-this lie? And for your entire lives? So Rowan’s scholarship to OSU was a lie too?”
                  “You know what I had to do the night after Jubilant Falls’ favorite son set the NCAA record for blocking goals? Pull him out of a goddamned emergency room because he’d gotten beat up by his bookie for ducking out on a bet. He was drunk out of his mind—and it wasn’t the first time that happened.”
                  Anna held up her hand to rein in the conversation. “My client isn’t here to rehash his brother’s college career. We need to get back to the reason he brought you here,” she said.
                  I nodded. “Yes, you’re right. “
    Rick opened his fists and lowered his head. He inhaled then exhaled and slowly looked up to meet my gaze.
    “Rowan killed Virginia. I know he did.”
                  “But Rowan is dead! You told me he committed suicide after he was released from federal prison! I went to his funeral! I wrote the story!”
                  Rick shook his head slowly back and forth. “No, Penny. Rowan isn’t dead. It was all a lie, like everything else in his life. He didn’t commit suicide. He told me that he needed to disappear after he got out of prison. He said he still owed people money and they were going to kill him if they ever found him.”
                  “But the funeral! The casket! All the people there—”
                  Rick nodded. “They all thought the same thing you did.”
                  I remembered his mother throwing herself across Rowan’s casket at the funeral, sobbing.
    “Your mother thinks her son is dead! How could you do that to your mother?” I cried.
                  He nodded again, this time sadly, regretfully. “I know. He wanted it that way. I tried to talk him out of it.” His voice trailed off and he sighed. “I gave him the money he needed to disappear.”
                  “How often did you hear from him?”
                  Rick shrugged. “Once a year, maybe twice, then more often recently.”
                  “What had he done with his life?”
                  “He got a new name, got married again. He’d started all over again, supposedly. We started talking more lately, a couple times a month or so. He was very, very upset about the commercials Virginia was running about me. He didn’t think they were fair or accurate, which they weren’t, as you know. After she beat me on Election Day, he threatened to go after her.”
                  “When did he say that? Before or after you came into my office and said you were going to make Virginia Ferguson pay?”
                  “Before—the day after the election, and then we talked like an hour before I came to see you.”
                  “On the phone or in person? Does Rowan have a cell phone?”
                  “On his cell phone.”
                  “Did you know where he was when he called?”
                  “No.”
              “When was the last time you saw him—really, physically saw