“Not to the police,” I said. “To an investigator. He took the prints. He has a whole report.”
Drew snaps. I see the control breaking. His hands curl into fists. I take a step back and I pull the gun from my waistband. I raise it between us, my hand shaking. He looks down the barrel and then into my eyes. His head cocks to the side.
“You’re going to kill me?”
I take another step back. My finger slips into the trigger guard.
“You’re going to shoot me?”
“Shut up,” I say.
I make my voice shaky. The gun waves wildly. I stagger back a third step. I see his eyes narrow. His mouth set. He steps toward me.
“You can’t do it,” he says.
“You know I can,” I say.
He laughs again. “You can’t finish it. You couldn’t then. And you can’t now. You don’t have it in you. We both know that.”
I want more than anything to put a bullet into his face. I think about my life, every moment of it. I see the knife. The blood. I see their faces . . . because I never stood up to him. Never stopped him.
But he’s more right than he knows. I can’t hurt him. No matter how hard I try, I can’t do it. It is the easy answer. I could shoot him, kill him, and it would be over. Patsy would be safe. I would be free. It would finally be finished.
Every muscle in my body tenses, except that finger. It remains frozen, paralyzed by years of lies. I try. I do, but even before this all started, I knew I couldn’t. If I did, it wouldn’t really be over. The cycle would just continue. And it would swallow every shard of innocence now and forever forward. That is the emptiness. And that is the cycle I will break, whether anyone can understand or not.
On the fourth step, I slip on the muddy bank of the water. For a second, the gun points to the sky. That’s when Drew moves. His hand shoots out. He grabs the barrel. The handle slips from my hand. I fall back, throwing an arm behind me to break the fall. I sprawl with one leg folded below me and one jutting straight out between Drew’s feet. One arm is free. The other is pinned behind me, sinking into the mud.
I find my gun in my brother’s hand. The barrel now, finally, pointed at me. I look up into his face. He thinks it is over. He thinks he’s won.
“Get up,” he hisses.
“No,” I say.
His head jerks. “What? What did you say?”
“No,” I say calmly.
For just an instant, I see myself through my brother’s eyes. I lay prone in the dirt, but my eyes are soft. My jaw is lax. The fear is gone. So is the pain and even the numbness. I look up at him with the eyes of truth. I see him. And he sees me.
“Get up!” he screams.
“No,” I whisper.
He kicks me, hitting the inside of my thigh and my groin. The pain fires through my stomach, into my chest. I fight to find my breath. But I do not move. I will not do what he says.
“I’ll . . .”
“No,” I say again.
I know my brother. In a way, I am him. We are, and always have been, mirror images of one another. I have pulled the trigger for him his entire life. I have done what he needed to have done. And he has done whatever it took to keep his hands clean of it. The last thing he will do is pull the trigger himself. For he stands alone out here, no one to point to, no one to blame. No story to build up that portrays him as the hero. And me as his bumbling villain.
For my brother to pull the trigger, he needs to see no choice. He needs to have no story. I need to take that from him. I need to leave him naked and exposed, with only one choice moving forward.
I look him in the eyes. “I’m going to confess.”
He scoffs. “You don’t have the guts.”
“I do,” I say, a half smile creeping up my face. “I am going to tell them I stabbed him.”
“You’re right,” he says. “You did. You stabbed him. Not me.”
“I’m going to tell them everything. I’ve already talked to Lauren. And Patsy. I’m sorry, Drew,” I say. “I have to do it. I have to end all the lies.”
“They won’t believe you,” he says.
“I have proof now, Drew.”
“You can’t,” he says. “We’re family.”
“I know,” I say, closing my eyes. “You were right. I couldn’t shoot you. I couldn’t hurt you. But I can’t let anyone else be hurt now, either. Not anymore. Never again.”
It is the only way we can be free. That’s what I realized that night watching Patsy fall victim to my brother’s will. It is the only way to end this loop. To cut it clean and true.
The rain falls around us, between us. The sound fills my head as my brother says nothing. Slowly, I open my eyes again. I see his face. I see his pain.
“No, Liam,” he whispers.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
The gun shakes again, but this time in my brother’s hand. “I can’t let you. You know that.”
He is pleading with me now. But I say nothing. I just look up to him, up into the rain. It’s time.
“Liam!” he shouts.
“It’s over,” I whisper.
It’s funny, in a way. I swear I can see the weakness he must have seen in me all those years. But it is not written on my face. Not anymore. No, it is painted brightly within my brother’s wide eyes.
“I love you,” I say, but not to him. To her. “But you’re just like him. You can’t do anything yourself. You just sit there with your job like he used to sit there playing with his model. But he wouldn’t have pulled the trigger, either.”
“No!” my brother yells.
I smile, something full and pure. “You’re just like Dad.”
That’s when everything changes. His eyes seem to refocus. That thin smile returns to his face. It’s like my words remind him. Maybe he was born into it. Maybe my father made him. Nature or nurture, it doesn’t matter. Drew is my father now. He has been for a long time. And just like my father, he can’t let the secrets out. He can’t let people know the truth. He can’t let a light shine on the monster inside. No matter what.
I stare at that smile. And I know I’ve won. I did it. It took me so many years to finally understand. He’s just like my father; there was no beating him at his game. Unless you played his game better.
My hand moves slowly. I reach into my pocket and pull out the keys. There are no prints. Time swallowed them years ago. There is no detective. There is just a lie, just my final move. The endgame.
He sees the evidence. The truth. And Drew believes. Everything I have done leads to this. My question will finally be answered. Either he will walk away, and I will know the depths of my weakness. The decades of lies I’ve told myself. Or he will pull the trigger. End this. And I’ll finally know for sure. I will finally be free.
My smile burns brighter than the lightning in the sky. And then my brother pulls the trigger. I hear the gun fire before pain flares just below my breastbone. The force drops me the rest of the way to the ground. My head hits the pond’s edge and I look up through the branches, at the slate-gray sky.
“Good-bye, Liam,” my brother says.
Faintly, I hear the sirens before the gun fires again. And I am still smiling.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
19
I hear voices like they speak under the water. I feel a chill rising in my legs, passing my hips and slipping into the core of me. I close my eyes even tighter, willing just one last moment to appear. I paint her face with the little strength I have. The colors blossom with each stroke of the brush. She comes to life in that moment, all swirls and blends of light and innocence. I see her. I see her, just as I painted.
She’s free, I think. After it all, she’s free. And the cold overtakes my chest. Hands touch my body, but not me. It starts under my breastbone, a gentle pull. I move toward it, into it. I let
it take me. My eyes open, or maybe they did. Through them I see the sun now shining between branches thick with bright green leaves. I hear my brother’s words.
“You got it,” he says.
My fingers, so small, tighten the laces of my shoes. I look into his face. He is young and fresh and full of life, full of truth and innocence. His smile lifts me, warms me more than the sun.
“Come on,” he calls, running through the woods ahead of me.
My legs are short. My muscles young. I try to keep up, but the distance between us grows. I call out to him, begging him to stop. And I hear his laughter as he passes out of sight.
I am alone, lost in the woods, the sun shining down on me through the timeless branches. I feel the pull again, starting at my chest. I call out one last time but there is no answer. So I slip slowly, peacefully into the cold darkness, for once in my short life knowing that everything will be okay.
EPILOGUE
Patsy cups her stomach as she stands outside his trailer. The weather is warm and the sun shines across the bleak, unkempt landscape as a slight breeze plays with her light blond hair. Through large, dark sunglasses, she takes in the house, the sprawling field beyond it, and the silent emptiness. She remembers their hopeful plans, and she wonders how it all went wrong.
Slowly, she walks along the gravel path to the front door. The yellow police tape drapes in a loose X. Her finger traces it without touching the plastic. She looks around once before gripping the tape and pulling it away. She opens the door and the putrid smell of rotting food rolls out of the trailer.
Patsy pauses then. The pain and confusion war within her as she relives those moments as if they run on an endless loop. She first saw it on the news. She watched the grainy footage of two bodies covered in white sheets. And she learned that they were both gone, forever. Liam shot by Drew. Drew shot by the police after a violent standoff in the woods. She tried to return home, only to find a swarm of reporters outside the house. Everything after that was a blur, running, hiding, and eventually giving in to the crushing reality. She gave an interview and was blindsided by the reporter, who had somehow found out about her pregnancy. She became the victim. The press lauded her as they tore Liam and Drew down. An anonymous source reported that bones were found at the scene, and that their father’s death would be reopened as a murder investigation. More and more stories of the Brennan brothers leaked. Some she knew to be true. Others, she might never know.
Days passed. Eventually, the pull grew too strong. Standing outside the trailer, though, Patsy can’t put into words what has drawn her to this place. Her family urged her to move away, run from the story before it identified her and the life of her child forever. She would do that, too. Without regret. Yet she could not leave, though. Not without understanding.
Holding her breath, she walks into the trailer. The air is thick and still. The furniture has been moved. She assumes the place has been searched by the police. Whatever she hopes to find would most likely have been removed. Yet something draws her inside.
As she passes a stained, threadbare couch, her hand runs along the top. Her head turns, and she sees it by the back window. The painting hangs on an easel, a pile of brushes and paints on the counter. A ragged hole pierces the right corner. The fabric folds over itself, blocking her view of the picture.
Slowly, through the crushing pain, she takes her first step. Then the next. She reaches the painting, standing at arm’s length, staring. Patsy reaches out, lifting that corner, exposing Liam’s final work of art.
The painting is overwhelmingly beautiful in the raw pain that marks every inch. Thin, umber strokes outline a face. The iridescent skin. Gaunt cheeks and bright red lips. Shades of blackness fall out from under a blue-and-white headscarf. Long, skeletal fingers, tipped with perfectly manicured nails a fiery red, reach out as if they might tear free from the canvas and touch her cheek. The deep lines of an exposed collarbone. The perfect 1960s movie star.
And the eyes. They stare back at her, full of life. The sharpness of the color, the line of her lids, the deep and sharp contours, the play of shadow and brightness. She feels the strength, the power that now seems to fill the room. In the clarity of those eyes, his mother’s eyes, she sees Liam anew.
She lets go of the canvas. It’s not what she’s here to see. Patsy looks above the door, the space over the cabinet, everywhere they had discussed putting a camera. There are none. She searches through the trailer, hoping to find just one. But there is nothing. No cameras. No surveillance. Nothing to hint that Liam ever intended to follow their plan.
Patsy holds her stomach. She imagines she can feel the baby growing inside her. And all she can do is pray her son will take after his uncle, not his father.
Acknowledgments
To Michelle, we’ve made it this far and I certainly wouldn’t be me without you.
To Ben and Lily, teenagers rock!
To Stephanie Rostan, the Tom Brady of literary agents.
To Jessica Renheim, you made this book so much better than I thought it could be.
To Christine Ball, John Parsley, and Jamie Knapp, thanks for letting me visit so much. You’re fun.
To Kayleigh George and Marya Pasciuto, thanks for not judging my silly questions and mindless e-mails.
To everyone at Dutton, serious thanks for everything you do!
To Jen Moffa—who was so mad at me that Eric Maney was mentioned in the last book—maybe we can all meet up for dinner. How’s 2023?
Most important, to Tyler and Austin Hofmann-Reardon. Your conversation on the beach led me to change the professions of the two main characters, the politician and his muscle.
And to everyone who reads more than the internet, keep the torch burning. It’s getting pretty dark out there.
About the Author
Bryan Reardon is the New York Times bestselling author of The Real Michael Swann and Finding Jake. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, Bryan worked for the state of Delaware for more than a decade, starting in the office of the governor. He holds a degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and lives in West Chester, Pennsylvania, with his wife and kids.
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The Perfect Plan Page 26