“You were partners,” Jack guessed. “You thought Eliza knew you were involved, but she didn’t.”
“Partners.” Curtis chuckled to himself. “Sure.” Then he paused, looking at his hands, seemingly surprised to see the gun there. “I don’t want to do this. You helped me out. But I guess I can’t let you walk away?”
Jack shook his head.
“Up until now, I think you could have. But I see you’ve changed your mind on things. For what it’s worth, I don’t know why. I don’t see what’s different.”
“I couldn’t live with it anymore.”
“That’s easy enough.” Curtis shrugged, raised the barrel. “You won’t have to.”
Jack lunged forward and yanked the cord, switching off the light. Everything was plunged into darkness. He took a few steps sideways in case Curtis fired. He heard Curtis’s footsteps. Only two. He imagined him scanning with the rifle in the dark. Waiting for his eyesight to adjust. Waiting for Jack’s shadow to cross the square prism of dull light that shot down from the hole in the roof.
“Come on, Jack,” said Curtis, with his slow and heavy breathing, pauses between words. In the dark, it was like they weren’t in the same room anymore, Curtis’s voice crackling down a phone line as it had at the beginning. “Aren’t you a little bit glad it’s us, here, together. Your season finale.” His voice echoed off the walls. “It won’t hurt. You can even keep your fingers.”
Jack had now managed to circle around Curtis in the dark. He pushed him hard in the back and, when Curtis stumbled in surprise, leaped on top of him. They scrambled in the dark. Curtis was flailing his arms, but all Jack wanted was a handle on the rifle, because if he knew where the barrel was, he could avoid it. Curtis head-butted him, and Jack felt his shoulder crumple with pain. The gun went off, and the cellar flashed white, the sound ringing in both of their ears. Jack held firm to the barrel and, with Curtis dazzled, yanked the gun away. Then he stood back up, under the square of light from the hatch, leveling the rifle at Curtis.
“We both know you don’t know how to use that,” said Curtis.
“You’re right,” said Jack, “but I don’t have to.”
He heaved the gun upward, throwing it through the hatch in the roof, where it clattered on the grass, out of harm’s way. Curtis reacted almost immediately, pile-driving Jack into the concrete wall with a roar. Jack felt something break—a rib?—and slid down to the floor, groaning. Curtis turned and was up quickly, scrambling over the bed frame. Though he was fat, he was tall, and he’d pulled himself up through the hatch before Jack could catch his breath.
By the time Jack managed to lever himself to stand, using the wall as support, Curtis was standing in the hole, a shadow against the night. He hadn’t picked up the gun yet. He looked down at Jack and spat in the cellar. Bloody mucus bubbled on the floor.
“Yeah,” Curtis said. “This’ll be much more entertaining.”
He slammed the hatch closed.
Chapter 38
Plunged into darkness, Jack staggered to the middle of the room and blindly felt for the cord. He turned on the light.
The main door was locked. The hatch closed. Curtis was probably figuring out a way to seal it, and then Jack would starve to death down here. Maybe that was the way Eliza had been supposed to die. He could try to open the hatch now, but Curtis would be watching the opening with the rifle. He’d be a slow-moving target pulling himself out of a hole with a broken rib. There was nothing he could do.
There was a muffled noise from above. Two cracks.
Curtis hammering something down, sealing Jack in.
If he’d have been filming this, he would have used a split screen: Jack cross-legged on the floor, waiting for death, side by side with a reenactment of Eliza doing the same. He could almost hear the ticking clock he’d put in the background, subtly over the soundtrack.
Plink. Plink. Plink.
Hang on. That wasn’t a ticking in his head. That was a real noise: a soft, wet tapping. Something was dripping. A slow, metronomic splash on the floor behind him.
Plink. Plink.
He turned around. Thick drops were steadily landing on the floor. They were coming from one of the cornices where the hatch sealed with the roof. The droplets ran together along the seam and pooled, before drawing down in tiny stalactites, stretching like chess pawns until their bulbous heads snapped off. A deep red. Dripping down through the cracks in the roof.
Thick. Like blood.
Then there was a groan of a hinge, and a beacon of light poured in. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but he could tell by the slim frame of the shadow above that it wasn’t Curtis.
His eyes focused. There—holding the rifle and a flashlight, tears streaming down both cheeks, flashlight shaking slightly, peering down into the hole, looking both the youngest and the oldest Jack had ever seen her—was Lauren Wade.
Chapter 39
Regretfully, Ian had learned his lesson and this time parked on the turn, which meant Jack had to hobble back down the driveway to get to the car. His back and chest hurt. He’d been right—the main door did lead to a thin concrete corridor. There were circular stains on the floor, from long-gone kegs or barrels, and then a stepladder up to a door. The door at the top opened into the new restaurant’s cellar. The fourth wine incubator was not a unit at all, just a cabinet, dressed up with a glass front and rows of bottles inside, that swung outward on hinges. Of course, Brett had only put in three. He would have chalked it up to Curtis being a cheapskate.
Ian sat them in the back of the SUV while he radioed Winter in Sydney. Their conversation was short, one sided: Don’t fucking touch anything this time. By the time Ian had figured out what was going on and got statements from Lauren and Jack, another car had arrived from Cessnock, and the incoming officer was stationed to stay with Curtis’s body, now under a white sheet.
Lauren still hadn’t stopped shaking.
Ian drove back into town in silence. He pulled up out the front of the pub, of all places, and helped Lauren out.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Ian said, “but I’m supposed to keep you here until Detective Winter arrives. He wants everybody in the same place, and this is the only place big enough. We’ve rung around, still chasing a few stragglers. I figure you can at least have a drink. Ambo’s coming too.” There was a lilt of optimism in his voice. As if he hoped that they wouldn’t notice they were being detained under the promise of beer.
“Can I wash my hands?” said Lauren quietly.
For the first time, Jack noticed the blood and dirt. Ian shook his head. He was playing it straight this time. Lauren grunted and headed inside. Jack followed her.
The bar was packed, but it took little effort to cross to an empty booth by the far window—everyone moved out of their way. Alan was tending bar, as usual. Cashing in on the emergency gathering. Brett and his sons were propped on stools. Even Andrew and Sarah Freeman—Andrew sawing at a steak, not speaking—were at a small table. Mary-Anne was sipping a white wine with a few people Jack didn’t recognize. In an obscure remembrance, he took his room key from his pocket and handed it to her. Mary-Anne curled her fist around the key as if it were wilting and nodded. Enough said. Good to see the back of you.
Ian McCarthy had taken a position leaning on the bar, close to the doorway. His gun was still on his hip. Jack thought it was probably overkill, considering the real danger was under a white sheet bleeding through a trapdoor but, hey, if a gun made him more comfortable. Then it occurred to him that Ian’s job wasn’t to protect him; it was to keep him there.
Jack slid in next to Lauren at the booth, deliberately sitting beside her, rather than across. Alan appeared with two glasses of beer. Lauren scooted one aside to Jack, no coaster, condensation skid mark. She picked hers up and held it against her neck, shut her eyes.
“You gonna drink it or wait for it to evaporate?” sh
e said after several minutes of Jack staring into the foam. He picked it up and took a reluctant sip. She needed normal. He could give her that. His acrobat wobbled inside. Now was not a good time. Maybe he should eat too.
Eat. He spoke it silently to himself. The way the mouth moved. Lips curled back. Eat. Such a teeth-baring word.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, clearing his throat. “That you had to—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I can’t. I can barely think. It’s stupid. I don’t even remember it. Ian told me I shot him twice.” She looked into her drink. “Twice.”
“It’s okay,” Jack said.
“I’m glad you’re still here.” She gave him an unconvincing smile. “We’ll never catch the copycat now though, will we?”
“There’s finally proof Curtis is guilty. So now the cops have a pattern of behavior.”
“It’s easy to try the dead. The ax will stick to Curtis now. If it comes out?”
“Suppose so.”
“I guess it’s finished then.” She breathed out deeply, relieved. “He probably did kill them both.”
“You’ve been pushing me the whole time to find this copycat and now you’re giving up?”
“Does this look like giving up?” She held up her bloodstained hands. “Fuck you. Maybe I’m ready to see my brother now. Really see him. And if the evidence points to him, then so be it. I should have listened to you at the beginning.”
“No,” Jack said, “you were right not to listen. You never should have. Winter will arrest me when he gets here, and I have to tell him what happened.”
“Arrest you?” Lauren’s voice dropped. “This is fucking self-defense. I’ll back you up.”
“It’s worse than that.” Jack took a deep breath. “I’m involved.”
There was a blare from the roof-mounted television. Trumpets, as there always are in a news bulletin jingle, accompanying circular discs sliding over a globe. Vanessa Raynor Tonight was starting. That was the last thing he wanted right now. Ted Piper smiling smugly down at him. He wondered if he should call it in as breaking news, steal Ted’s thunder again, but Ian had been clear: everything was under wraps until Winter arrived.
“Turn it up,” yelled Brett Dawson, banging a pint down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ian tense with the noise. His hand went to his hip. Surely, he didn’t need that gun. Wait. Did Ian normally even carry one? Jack turned his attention back to Lauren.
“Involved?” Lauren said quietly.
“Four months ago.” Jack took a breath—last truth. Empty now. “I found something.”
Lauren hit him the way grieving women hit men. On the shoulder, fists curled but pounding flat slaps with their wrists. The quiet violence one inflicts in public. When she was done, she laid her head against him. He put an arm around her. Not quite a hug. Selfishly, more to shield her from the bar than to comfort her. It was also the reason he’d sat beside her in the booth—so she couldn’t storm out and make a scene. Her back shuddered up and down. She was crying.
“You knew?” she said after peeling Jack’s arm away and sitting back up. Her nose was red. “I asked you if you knew anything else. I fucking asked you.”
“I know.”
“That’s why you were so confident Curtis was guilty when you got here. You were more than confident.” Her hands were trembling.
“Yes. It was planted, but it still places her there. I knew she hadn’t been dumped.”
“And you knew that. All this time.”
“Yes.”
“None of this had to happen.” She looked at him in awe, as if seeing him for the first time. “None of this had to happen,” she repeated. “I just shot my own brother to save you. Everything I did, for nothing. And it’s all your fault in the first place.”
Jack didn’t say anything. Because she was right. If Jack had handed in the evidence in the first place, Curtis would still be in jail. Then, whoever killed Alexis wouldn’t have a cover-up. Because of Jack Quick, another killer was set to walk free.
That’s what you do, isn’t it? James Harrison’s words raced through his mind. He felt the muscles under his jaw tense. You get people like me out of jail.
People like James Harrison. People like Curtis Wade.
Lauren was recovering from the shock.
“Oh, you’ve fucked this one,” she said in one long exhale. She spun her glass side to side. “You’ve really fucked it.”
“It’s not finished. Hush still has the evidence we need.”
She peered at him, trying to figure out his angle—whether he was just telling her what she wanted to hear because he needed an ally. He was just like James Harrison, guessing at the answers until he landed the right one. Lauren was quiet. Was she weighing up whether she would have done the same, had she seen the pink laces poking from the shrub? Jack couldn’t tell. Had never learned to read her.
“Fuck, Jack,” she said. “Move.” She nudged him.
He slid out of the booth and stood.
“I need some water. Air. The bathroom. Whatever. I need something. Space.” She brushed past him.
“Lauren—”
“Just give me a minute to myself, all right? I need to think about what you’re telling me.” She hissed, set to storm off, noticed the people around, changed her mind, and turned back, leaned into him. “You know, I was the only one on your side. The only one who would pat you on the back and say, ‘It’s not your fault.’ Well, it really is, Jack. All of this, it is all you. And that’s the way you wanted it. You never gave a shit about me or Alexis or Eliza. How many people have to die to fix your career?”
She stomped toward the bathroom. Ian moved a few paces down the bar, asked her where she was going.
“I’m going to wash my fucking hands!” Lauren yelled, fanning them in his face.
Ian, twice her size, almost physically crumpled, the yield rippling through him. Jack sat back down. A few people shot glances.
People had been telling him he was selfish since the beginning. Winter had. Even Curtis himself. That he had a perverse need of ownership over the crime. But, like it or not, he was tied up in this town now. He affected it in tangible ways. Andrew had told him something similar atop the silo, the first time they’d met. His words glimmered inside Jack, felt important, but he couldn’t pin them down. All this time, he’d reached out of the television screen and affected real people—made Andrew Freeman look like a criminal, Ian McCarthy look incompetent, and Alexis, in her own words, look like a bit of a superstar.
Andrew’s words came back to him. You’ve cost a lot of people their jobs.
But not Alexis. She was probably the only person he hadn’t made look bad. In fact, he’d done the opposite. Getting Curtis out of jail had been a huge break for her career.
Something Lauren had said too. Something Peter had. All his memories colliding, fireworks in his synapses. Some meaning, simmering just below his consciousness. He looked around the bar. At the gathering of people here. Mary-Anne. Brett Dawson. Andrew and Sarah Freeman quiet in the corner. They’d actually tried to be on his side. Even Ian, who, if Jack hadn’t have stolen the files, was trying to lead Jack to the ax; Jack could feel his hurt from across the room. The only one missing was Curtis.
It’s all about you, Lauren had spat. He’d never had any problem accepting that it was his fault Alexis had died. But she’d phrased it differently. How many people have to die to fix your career?
No. It slowly came over him, TV blaring in the background. How Lauren had said it—did that make sense? No. No. No.
It was his fault. But in a different way. This wasn’t some egocentric application of grief. Curtis walking free had tarred a lot of people with a brush of incompetence. Some more severely than others. Some, perhaps, enough to kill over. Maybe Alexis had merely pissed someone off—a bad breakup—and that had sealed her fate. Their real m
otive hidden underneath the opportunity of it all, but, hey, squeeze in a little personal revenge while you’re there. But the real motive was to stage the crime scene to rekindle Curtis’s guilt. The copycat was about restoring order. Trying to put Curtis away for a crime he’d already committed by framing him for a new one. Framing a guilty man.
His father’s words clicked in as well: Grown adults lie to make themselves look better. The copycat was twelve-year-old Jack, standing on top of the Fist, looking down at his brother’s swastika of a body. The same lie. For reputation’s sake. Reputation. Jack was here to fix his career, sure. But someone else was seeking redemption too. Someone Jack had ruined.
Alexis hadn’t been murdered because she’d sent Curtis Wade to jail for four years; she’d been killed because she got him out.
Grown adults lie to make themselves look better.
You’ve cost a lot of people their jobs.
How many people have to die so you can fix your career?
And, suddenly, he knew who Hush was. Why Alexis had to keep them a secret professionally. Because it would look bad for her to be dating someone so close to the case. Her funeral—things Jack had dismissed as irrelevant filled in the final blanks. He knew. In fact, sitting in the Royal, he was looking right at them. It was someone whose career Jack had damaged and who knew that a new murder was a way for them to prove themselves. To fix their career. Be a hero. His hands shook as he withdrew his phone, placed it on the table faceup, and started tapping at it. He looked around the bar. This would work. And then what? Move fast. Maybe they’d have time. Lauren was making her way back to him, a look of resolve about her. He held up a finger as she approached. She didn’t ask what he was doing. She just watched.
Jack dialed the number he’d saved for Hush.
A beat of silence.
In the pub, a phone began to ring.
It was a tinny ring. Almost an echo. As Jack had known it would be.
Because the ring wasn’t coming from the pub itself.
Trust Me When I Lie Page 29