“I’m following him, too,” he said finally.
She pulled her head back from his chest and looked up into his face. “Why?”
“I—” he started, and stopped. “I thought I could catch him doing something to get him in trouble. To make them send him back to jail.”
Julia released from his embrace. “Swear.”
“What?”
“Swear that’s all this is.”
“I do,” Tony said quickly. He’d never lied to her like this before. Never sworn on a lie. He couldn’t remember her ever asking him to swear he was being truthful. All of this was new. And he needed to sell it, to keep her innocent. “I swear,” he said. “I’m just watching him.”
“I want you to stop,” she said. “I told Charlie to stop, and I want you to, too.”
“Okay,” he said.
“It can’t get out that we were stalking him.”
“It won’t,” Tony said. “We’re done. We’re done.”
“Promise we won’t keep secrets,” she said.
“I promise,” he said. What he was really promising was to keep her protected, but she had no way of knowing that. And to himself, he made a second promise: after this, he’d never keep a secret from her again.
50
John Rice, 2019
Rice had struck a nerve, that much was obvious. Julia sat in her recliner, squeezing her hands together. Her mind probably going a mile a minute, trying to decide what to say next.
“I think I’m confused about where this is all going,” Julia said. “Why wouldn’t we think he had run away?”
Her question hung in the air.
Rice could say nothing, and his silence would compel her to say everything. She would talk against herself, trying to explain away whatever she thought he knew, and in doing so she would reveal everything to him.
“I feel like I’m missing something,” she said.
It was already starting. The whole bit folded out in front of him now. He could see it, clear as he could see her. She was utterly terrified, and she would go wherever he might take her. It was all over, if he wanted.
He hummed quietly before he spoke. “Did you miss it then?”
Her voice was hoarse. “Miss what?”
Rice sighed. Enough.
“I know what happened,” he said. “I’ve always wondered if you knew, too.”
51
Nick Hall, 2015
The visiting room at Goodspring was wide and bright. The hard walls were painted white and covered in patient artwork. It reminded Nick of a school cafeteria. There were groupings of tables and chairs all around the room, for patients to visit with whoever had come to see them. It was Christmas. The holiday seemed to lose more of its magic with each year as he aged, but this year was different. This year, Tony and Julia had packed up the kids on Christmas morning and driven two hours to come see Nick. This year it felt special again.
“I’m gonna hit the bathroom,” Tony said as he stood up from their table.
Julia turned to Chloe. “Why don’t you pick out a game for us to play?”
“I want to pick,” Seb whined.
“There’s no need for that,” Julia said as she eyed him with a raised brow. “You can each pick one, but no whining. Especially on Christmas!” she added as the kids crossed to the far end of the room.
She smiled at Nick and leaned on a fist. “Are you hanging in there okay?”
He was a weekend shy of two weeks in the program now. “Yeah,” he said. “At first, after I told Tony, I felt better than I had in months. It was like everything was going to be good again and I felt like my old self. But then it wore off, and it was awful—I’m so glad I was here.”
Julia looked confused.
“My therapist here said I was probably just finally starting to process things. I told Jeff about the overall lie, you know, at the beginning of the month, but we still hadn’t talked about what happened in detail. We were going to do it slowly over time, but it’s all started to come up anyway. You know what I mean?”
She shook her head. “What lie?”
Did Tony not tell her? “What I told Tony.”
“When?”
“When he drove me here.”
“He didn’t tell me anything.”
Tony appeared in the doorway across the room.
Nick began to whisper. “Please don’t ask him.”
Julia whispered back. “What didn’t he tell me?”
“Please, Julia—please not today.”
They fell silent as Tony reached the table. “What’s going on?”
Julia looked at Nick. He pleaded with his eyes.
Her voice was cautious. “The kids are picking games.”
Tony sat down. “Cool.”
Julia was staring at him. What was he thinking, not telling her?
Two game boxes slammed onto the table.
“Ea-sy,” Tony cautioned with a frown.
“Connect Four,” Nick read. “Love it.”
Chloe beamed at his approval.
“One thousand— No, Seb, this is what you chose? A thousand-piece puzzle?”
Sebastian grinned at Tony so wide that Nick wondered whether he’d intended it as a joke.
“He liked the picture on the front,” Chloe said with a shrug.
Nick kept looking back at Julia, whose eyes hadn’t left Tony’s face.
52
Tony Hall, 2015
I can’t believe it.” Julia was lying on her side in their bed, turned to face Tony. “He remembered everything.”
Tony nodded.
“He’s been so alone, all this time.”
“I know.”
Snow was falling outside the window across from the bed. Julia was doing what anyone would—she was processing what she’d just learned about Nick. Tony was just waiting for the other shoe to drop: why hadn’t he told her?
“I don’t know if I understand what he said about the fight,” she said.
“He didn’t want to tell anyone that he couldn’t stop him.”
“But isn’t that . . . obvious? Even in the version he first told?”
“Yeah but . . . it was different. At first he told it, like, single cheap shot, he’s out. What really happened made him feel powerless.” Tears began to well. “He was awake for all of it—for the moment he was overpowered. Do you get it?”
Julia nodded. And maybe she did, to some extent. But Tony didn’t know how to explain what it meant to Nick—what it would have meant to Tony—to be dominated by another man, in spite of being conscious when it happened. What it was like to spend your whole life hearing you were supposed to win fights, be strong. And if you couldn’t do those things, you weren’t a man.
“What are you going to do about it?”
There it was. Her eyes were steady on his face.
“Nothing.”
“You always do something. You can’t help yourself. What are you going to do about this?”
Tony rested a hand on her shoulder. “Nothing.”
53
Julia Hall, 2015
Two days after Christmas, Julia caught up with Margot. They’d become friends during law school and grown closer over the years. On paper they’d always looked quite different. Margot was engaged when school started; Julia was fiercely single. Margot was outspoken and confident; Julia usually had to be forced to give an answer in class. They had study carrels in the library near each other, and they bonded over their love of caffeine and TV shows that kept them up at night. Over a decade later, Margot was divorced and childless and Julia was married with kids, but the important stuff had stayed. They still met for coffee at least once a month, they still texted about Criminal Minds after every episode, and they still loved each other.
“Hey, I keep forgett
ing,” Margot said, “send me that cauliflower rice recipe.”
“Oh God, I haven’t made that in so long.”
“I tried to make it up myself and it was awful.”
“I mean, it’s cauliflower,” Julia said.
“But it was so good the time I had it with you. Can you email me the one you used to make?”
Julia walked into the study and shook the mouse to wake up the computer. “Yeah, I’ll find it for you.”
“You’re the best.”
They hung up, and Julia opened Google. Typed cauliflower rice. There were so many results, and none of the hyperlinks were purple. She scrolled but couldn’t tell which recipe was the one she’d been using in the spring.
She opened the internet history. Typed cauliflower. No results. That didn’t make sense. She’d probably gone to that page ten times.
She clicked back to the main history page. Scrolled. The list of pages she’d visited ended on December 14. There were no results before that date.
There were searches and page titles from the fourteenth—the work she’d done that morning. Everything before that was gone. The history had been cleared on the thirteenth. The same day, she now knew, that Nick told Tony what Ray Walker really did to him.
She closed the history and returned to Google. Typed How to restore history. The page filled with links to articles. She clicked the first one. She could run a “system restore,” apparently, and it should recover the lost history. She saved all her most recent work to a flash drive, just in case, and then followed the prompts in the article. She selected 12/13/2015 as the restore date and sat back on her stool to watch and wait.
She was being crazy. But why would Tony have deleted the history? He had come home from dropping Nick at Goodspring and gone into the study for a long time—at least an hour. He’d said that night he was working, but he wouldn’t have deleted work stuff from the computer. She was probably just going to see where he’d bought her Christmas presents. Oh God, or pornography. She laughed softly. Her stomach was so upset with worry that she was sure she’d be glad to see he’d just been watching porn that night, even if she’d been reading in the next room.
After a few minutes, the computer rebooted. She opened the browser and clicked history. The most recent entry was a page titled “How to Delete Your Internet History.”
Before that was a Google search: “Delete history.”
Before that, a blog post titled “Ice Knives & Stone Fruit.” What the hell did that mean?
Before that, a page that froze Julia in place.
A page called “Forum: How Would You Commit Your Perfect Murder?”
And before that one, “Forum: What Are the Main Causes of Unsolved Murders?”
And before that, a news article: “Why So Many Murders Go Unsolved.”
And before that, a Google search: “Unsolved murder causes.”
He was going to kill him.
Tony was going to kill Ray Walker.
54
Tony Hall, 2015
He found Julia in the bedroom. It was just after four, and she was under the covers.
“Honey?”
She didn’t stir. What was going on? She took a call from Margot and went upstairs. Over an hour had passed before Tony noticed she hadn’t come back down.
Something was wrong.
He sat down on the bed gently. “Honey?”
Without opening her eyes, she said, “I saw the computer.”
“What?”
“I know what you’re doing.”
Dread spilled into his stomach. “What are you talking about?”
She sat up with her eyes clamped shut, a hand on her head like she was woozy. Then she opened her eyes, kept them on the bedspread. “Just tell me I’m wrong.”
No. No, please, she doesn’t know.
“About what?”
“What the fuck are you thinking?” she whispered violently as she shoved him.
“Hey!”
“I saw what you were looking at. Murder. Murder?” She pounded her palms against his chest again, and he brought his hands up to catch her wrists.
Fuck. Oh, fuck.
“How did you see it?”
“It was easy. Nothing you do on the computer is ever gone.” She wrenched her hands from his grip.
“I’ll get you a new one.”
“So when you kill him and they take our computer, they won’t be suspicious that it’s brand-new?”
“Shh,” he hissed. “Keep your voice down.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want anyone knowing anything about it, not you or Nick or anyone.”
“So you’ll get me a new computer.” She nodded, wide-eyed and tight-lipped. “And we’ll be good.”
“That was a one-off. I haven’t done anything like that again.”
“Everything is traceable, Tony.”
“No, I’ve been careful.”
“Besides this, besides using the computer in our house.”
“Yes. I swear.”
“So you’re gonna do this.”
Tony broke her gaze.
“Explain it to me. Explain why you think you’re entitled to do this.”
“Entitled?”
“Yeah. Nick’s doing everything he’s supposed to. He told the police, he’s willing to testify, he’s killing himself to get through court. Why do you think you get to—just—do this insane fucking thing?”
“He can’t go on like this. You know that—he tried to kill himself.”
“He’s safe. He’s getting help. You’re pretending this is about him, but it’s really about you.”
“If you can’t see how this would help Nick, I don’t know what to say. He’s our family.”
“You want to talk about our family? You’re talking about killing someone and our fucking kid is downstairs.”
An awareness struck him, suddenly, of what Julia was missing. A simplicity to how he might help her see.
“One of our kids is downstairs,” he said quietly. “But my first kid is in a hospital in Belfast.”
She looked at him wide-eyed, then at the bed.
“If it were Seb or Chloe, maybe then you’d understand. He’s like my kid.”
Julia laid back down and rolled away from him.
“He’s always been my kid to me.” Tony walked around the bed and knelt before her. “Don’t you see that?”
She didn’t move. Her eyes looked strangely faraway, but her gaze rested somewhere near his back foot.
“He tried to kill himself.” Tony’s voice cracked and he shrugged at himself. “If he tells the rest of it . . . if the case doesn’t settle, he’s going to tell them what Walker did to him. When that comes out, it’ll all get so much worse.” He waited a while to go on. “We almost lost him. You said that; you know. He’s part of your family, too.”
She looked up at him then. “I know that.”
“Then let me save him,” Tony said.
Julia dropped her eyes back to the floor. Tony stood. Neither of them spoke. He walked around the bed and reached the door when he heard her voice.
“Promise me,” she said quietly behind him.
He turned back.
“Promise me you’ll wait to see if it settles in January.”
He nodded. That was fine. January was a good month for it.
55
John Rice, 2015
Depressingly, the week after Christmas was always a busy one at the station. Crime usually spiked around the December holidays: money problems, alcohol, too much time with family. Rice was just getting ready to leave on a domestic violence case when the receptionist paged his desk phone. Julia Hall was calling for him.
>
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Julia said. “I’m sure you’re busy.”
“It’s fine. Is everything all right?”
“Oh, yeah. I’m just calling to ask, ah.” Her voice was all defeat. “Something I think I already know the answer to.”
“Okay?”
“Is there any way that, um, Ray Walker’s bail would be revoked because of anything that’s happened?”
“What, with Nick?”
“Well, yeah. With him and his mom contacting the press so much, and all of it just having such a negative effect on Nick’s mental health.”
He was going to fail them again.
“No, I don’t think so. He hasn’t violated bail, he’s had no contact with Nick. Nothing he’s done has been criminal. It’s terrible, what Nick’s going through, but no judge would let us hold him just because Nick is struggling. I talked to Linda, and she thinks we’ll get into a pissing match, pardon my French, if we try to do anything to stop him or the press from running their mouths. Technically, they haven’t released anything they weren’t allowed to. Probably just end up drawing even more attention to the case.”
Julia paused for long enough that Rice thought the call had dropped.
“Yeah, I figured. I just felt like I had to ask.”
“You guys doing okay over there?”
It was a stupid question. He doubted she’d be calling if everything was coming up roses.
“Going a little crazy,” she said softly.
“I’m so sorry, Julia. I wish there was something I could do, but unless he violates his bail, we’re waiting out a plea or a trial.”
“They told Nick they thought it could be a year. Was that just . . . you know, them managing his expectations? It could be sooner, right?”
“Anything’s possible. But, I mean, I’m set for trial next month in a case I closed three years ago.”
Julia was silent. Why was she so surprised? She’d been a defense attorney.
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