Johnson asked, “And he agreed?”
“Sure. He needed me.” Brittlynn almost smiled.
Johnson circled back. “And what would Chad do? What was his part of the deal if you agreed to lie for him?”
Brittlynn looked away and blushed, seeming suddenly ashamed. “I was just a kid. A girl who was in love, you know. Chad was my everything. At least he was at fourteen.” They waited until she finally admitted, “He promised to marry me the minute I turned eighteen.” Her gaze was level. “He had to swear he’d break up with Marlie, that he’d lie and say they weren’t planning to run away and that he wasn’t even near that mansion, that she dreamed up the whole thing if she ever testified or was questioned by the cops or whatever. That . . . that she was obsessed with him when he was in love with me.”
“When you were the one who was obsessed.” Johnson leaned back in her chair.
“He loved me!” Brittlynn hooked a thumb at her chest. “Me. Not her.” She blinked and a single tear slid down her cheek. Sniffing, she slapped it away with the sleeve of her sweater.
“Weren’t you curious as to what happened to her?” Johnson asked, shoving a tissue box toward Brittlynn.
“Sure. Everyone was. For God’s sake, it was, like, a national obsession.” She angled her chin upward, though her eyes were still bright with unshed tears. Her hands were shaking. “To me, it didn’t matter what happened to her. At least not then. All that I cared about was that I had Chad.” Her voice faltered a bit. “I won.”
Thomas watched Brittlynn’s reaction. “Do you believe Chad’s story?”
“Yes!” She sniffed again. Ignored the proffered box of Kleenex. “Oh, yeah. He didn’t, like, have any blood on him, and I figured when I read about that massacre that if he’d been anywhere near any of the victims, there would have been blood. Tons of it. And he was scared, like batshit scared. Freaked out beyond freaked out. But not like scared because he thought he was going to be caught for killing an entire family. No, like scared because of what he’d seen. He never liked Jonas, told me that he was ‘whacked,’ that’s the word he used, and from that night forward he wanted nothing to do with the McIntyre family. Nothing.”
“So he saw Jonas McIntyre kill Donner Robinson?” Thomas wanted to be certain and the attorney finally broke in.
“She just told you what she knows,” Cooke said.
But Brittlynn said, “No . . . I mean, I guess. I think so. What Chad saw was that Jonas attacked Donner—cut him. Bad, I think . . .” she paused. “But I don’t know. He could’ve been still alive or bleeding out or . . . well, shit, I don’t know. I’m not sure Chad does. He didn’t stick around long enough to find out.”
“Someone slit Donner Robinson’s throat, ear to ear,” Johnson said, leaning forward. “That would take some doing.”
Brittlynn glared at her. “I’m just telling you what Chad told me!” She turned to her attorney. “I don’t know anything else.”
Thomas held up a hand, trying to calm her, and silently warn Johnson to back off. They needed all the information they could get from Brittlynn and agitating her wouldn’t help. “Did Chad see Jonas kill anyone else or attack anyone else?”
“No, no. I asked him.” Brittlynn was shaking her head, her red hair threatening to escape from the band holding it away from her face. “He just saw what I told you, that Jonas attacked Donner, that he swung the sword and cut him, but that’s all he saw. Well, at least all he ever told me. And after that first night, whenever I brought it up, he’d shut down. Refused to talk about it. Get mad. He just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“So you lied for him?” Johnson clarified.
“Yes.” The word was a whisper.
Again, Johnson asked, “And he lied to the police about not being at the cabin?”
“I just told you! Yes!” Brittlynn exploded, angry now, her voice rising. She spat the gum into a tissue she fished from the box. “We both lied, okay? That’s why I’m here.” She wadded the gum in the thin paper and tossed it into a nearby basket. Then she added, “Just so you know. Agreeing to lie for him just so I could have him and Marlie couldn’t was the worst mistake of my life. The worst!” She threw the attorney another glance. They were losing her.
Thomas asked quickly, “What about Marlie Robinson?”