Then I realized something else.
“You kept it all,” I said.
“What?”
“Everything he got out of the houses, all the money. You kept it.”
She nodded. “Not drugs or guns or anything. Just the money. Vince told me to.”
We were quiet for a moment. There was still something that wasn’t clear to me.
“The vase,” I said.
“What about it?”
“It ended up in Braithwaite’s apartment. How?”
Jane looked like she was holding back a smile. “I put it there.”
“Why?”
Jane hesitated, then said, “When I left Vince that night, I heard him talking on the phone about Braithwaite, that he was the most logical suspect because he had a key, knew the code. Vince mentioned an address. The next morning, when Braithwaite went off to walk dogs, I got into his place and planted it. I figured Vince and his guys would search the place eventually and pin it on him, even though that never happened. I’d be off the hook.”
“How’d you get into his place?” I asked.
She frowned. “Please. Look who I’ve spent the last few years living with. Think I couldn’t get into an apartment? There’s no security system in that old house.”
I was seeing Jane in a way I never had before. “Being mad at Vince, stealing the money, I can sort of see that. And shooting Stuart, that was pretty bad, but you never meant for it to happen. But setting up Braithwaite? An innocent man? Knowing Vince and his crew would probably kill him when they found that vase? That wasn’t an accident, Jane.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Teach? I’m a survivor. You do what you have to do.” She searched my face. “What’s goin’ on in there? What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But you killed someone, Jane. You murdered Stuart.”
She tilted her head back, a newfound confidence in the set of her jaw. “Then maybe you should turn me in.”
I said nothing.
“You’ve got blood on your hands, too, Teach. You killed a man. And don’t think I’m not grateful. And you’ve let Vince take the blame for that. Sounds like he even took the blame for Stuart. It’s been a month. I wonder how the cops would look at that now, if they found out you’d really killed Joseph.”
I felt a pounding in my temples.
“I’m the only one who knows what you did and you’re the only one who knows what I did,” Jane said coldly. “Maybe Grace is figuring it out, but I bet a couple of words from you could change that. You could say your phone’s been acting up, too. Tell her it’s time to get her a new, fancier one. They’re always upgrading them. She’d love that. I’d even pay for it, if you want.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Jane blotted a tear with her sleeve, and with that, seemed to adopt a new face. She said, “One thing I figured out back when I was in school, around the time you were my teacher, is the only one who’s going to look out for you is you. And then when my mom hooked up with Vince, well, watching him, that point of view really got driven home. You can’t wait around for others to make your life better. You see what you want and you take it.”
She patted my shoulder. I didn’t like the feel of it. “That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate everything you’ve done. You’ve been awesome. Right now, you need to think about what’s best for you. You think calling the cops and telling them about what I did is going to work to your advantage? You’re a teacher. You can figure that one out.”
The door opened. It was Cynthia.
“What on earth are you two gabbing about? There’s food and drink in here. Jane, I want to hear about all the places you’re going.”
Jane smiled broadly and went back into the house. When Cynthia saw me standing there not moving, she stepped outside.
“You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“I can see it in your face. Something’s wrong.”
I shook my head.
Cynthia took my hands in hers. “I know we’ve been to hell and back. You’re having nightmares every night. We’re all going through a posttraumatic stress thing. But I feel there’s still something you haven’t told me, that maybe—”
Inside the house, Grace screamed, “What’s this?”
We both ran inside. Grace was hauling a tall, narrow box out of the front hall closet, reading the description of its contents.
“Nuts,” Cynthia said to me. “She found it. Grace, you weren’t supposed to—Oh shit. We were going to give you that later, after Jane and Bryce left and—”
Grace looked at her mother with tears in her eyes. “I love it,” she said. “It’s a way, way better telescope than I had as a kid.”
“At least five times you said, when we were talking up in your room this past month, how you wanted to get back into the whole stargazing thing, how much you missed it.”
Grace leaned the box against the wall and wrapped her arms around Cynthia. I stood there, watching, wanting to be part of this moment but holding back.
Jane glanced at me, smiled, and said, “Isn’t that great? I could just cry.”
Maybe Grace would let me borrow her new telescope. Let me scan the heavens for incoming asteroids the way she used to when she was seven. Grace used to worry one would hit the earth and obliterate us all.
That struck me, right then, as the only thing that might give me peace.
Acknowledgments
IT just might be in order to thank readers. There are more of you with each book, and to all of you who’ve said to someone else, “You should read this guy,” I want you to know I’m grateful.
Ditto, booksellers. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
And there are a few individuals I need to single out: Kristin Cochrane, Mark Streatfield, Duncan Shields, Helen Heller, Juliet Ewers, Danielle Perez, Bill Massey, Kara Welsh, Heather Connor, Susan Lamb, Nita Pronovost, David Young, Gaby Young, Valerie Gow, Brad Martin, Camilla Ferrier and everyone at the Marsh Agency, Ali Karim, Cathy Paine.
Also, thanks to Spencer Barclay, his Loading Doc Productions team, and everyone else who works on my book trailers: Alex Kingsmill, Paige Barclay, Eva Kolcze, Elia Morrison, Nick Whalen, Martin MacPherson, Katie Brandino, Jeremy Kane, Ian Carleton, Misha Snyder, Nick Storring, Gord Drennan.
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