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CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. the wrong side of rock bottom
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RILEY VAN KIRK was a lot of things. He was a son, he was a brother, and most importantly, he was a good friend. He was the type of guy who sparked happiness in the cold hearted, his radiance and warmth melting away the ice built in the chest cavities of others. There was never a single dull day whenever Riley Van Kirk was around, the boy knowing all the right things to say and do to make you feel as if you were dancing on cloud 9, everyone else's dark days filling with nothing but light. Riley was just simply a good guy with a kind soul and warm heart.
However, no one would have ever believed he was capable of something as violent and as monstrous as murder.
Nova Van Kirk didn't know what to believe when John B confessed to her in the midst of his erratic and fragile state that her brother was involved with the disappearance ( and now murder ) of John Routledge. It was a shock to learn that Ward Cameron — a man Nova had known her entire life and someone she saw as family — was a cold blooded killer. But to discover her own brother had some sort of involvement in the gruesome death himself was the last thing Nova Van Kirk wanted to hear.
If what John B was telling her was the truth, then there was a part of Riley's life that Nova never even knew about. There was a whole other side to the boy that she was completely clueless about because she was too blinded by the good she saw in her annoying older brother. She wanted to believe Riley was picture perfect because not only was he her brother, but also her best friend, but how could she turn a blind eye to the atrocities he's committed since the day he willingly helped Ward Cameron murder an innocent man?
The worse part was that it made sense. Nova remembered how strange Riley acted after he came back from fishing with Ward, how on edge he had become when it was announced John Routledge was missing, and how guilty he looked whenever Juno carelessly brought up how sad it was now that John B was basically an orphan because people who go missing at sea never tend to come back. It explained why he turned to drugs to begin with, the boy needing a release from the guilt he held onto after killing his best friend's father.
