“You love us,” Wes says easily, like it’s easy, even though it’s never been, for me or Lee, and maybe that’s why the two of us folded him into our family like a missing ingredient.
“Yeah,” Lee says. “I really do.”
— 64 —
7:25 p.m. （403 minutes free）
2 safe-deposit keys （stashed in my room）
The sun sets, and we are still alive.
We lie out on the pallet lounge near the pool. It’s hot this time of year, dry to the point of danger as we head into the worst of fire season. But tonight it’s calm, sky shimmering from the orange heat as the darkness sets in.
Iris is wearing my pajamas, Wes’s College of the Siskiyous shirt used to be Lee’s even though she never went there, and I wrap up in my robe because the idea of pulling a T-shirt over my raw shoulder sounds like hell. I’ve got an ice pack against my cheek and two more on the table to break open and use later.
Lee watches us from the house, but she doesn’t try to make us go inside to sleep. For a long time, Iris stares out at the reflection of the stars on the pool, and Wes plays a game of solitaire with a pack of cards he brought from his room. He pauses only when she finally speaks.
“I didn’t want him to die.”
It takes me a second to realize she’s talking about Red Cap. I suppose we’ll find out his name sometime in the coming days. Does he have people? A family?
“You didn’t kill him,” Wes says softly. “His partner did.”
“But if I hadn’t made the Drano bomb, maybe . . .”
“Duane was always going to kill him, Iris,” I tell her, and it’s not gentle, because you can’t be gentle with that kind of horrible truth. “He had his escape plan in his pocket the whole time. There was no way he was walking out of there. If you hadn’t made the bomb, we wouldn’t have either.”
She shakes her head like she’s trying to shake out the guilt. Lee gave her a hot-water bottle for her stomach, and she curls up around it like one of those roly-poly bugs.
“Don’t think about it,” I say, because that’s my motto. “Lock it away.”
“Or talk about it if you want,” Wes says, staring hard—admonishingly—at me. It dawns on me that I’m not reacting the right way. She’s not normal. It echoes in my head. Those words, like Raymond himself, will haunt me forever.
“What are we going to tell the sheriff tomorrow?” Iris asks.
“The truth,” I say. “That we stayed quiet until we saw an opportunity to act when they left us alone in the bathroom. We took it, but they got the better of us. Then we got the better of him in the barn.”
“So just the highlights. What happens if he says something?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think he will. He’s got a record already, so he knows he’s going away for a long time, no matter what information he hands over. Knowing who I am . . . that’s much more valuable where he’s going.”
“Will you run?”
It’s not Iris who asks it. It’s Wes.
I look across the lounge at him, the depth of all he knows and all we’ve endured together and separately almost swallowing me.
“No,” I say. “But that’s why we need to be careful. Because of Lee. No. Don’t look over at her,” I say as Wes instinctively starts to turn toward the house where she’s probably still checking on us.
“Lee can’t know,” I continue. “She thinks my cover is intact. It needs to stay that way.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Iris asks.
“She’s gone,” Wes says, and I shrug helplessly when Iris looks at me like she expects disagreement.
“If she thought Raymond might find out that Ashley Keane became Nora O’Malley, Lee would knock me out and have me on a plane before I came to.”
“How long do you think it’ll take for him to figure it out?” Wes asks. He’s playing it so casual, but there’s an undercurrent to his voice, to the shine in his eyes. He’s had years of not just being in the know, but living with the results. He’s been across the hall, listening to me yell in my sleep, just as much as I’ve been across that same hall, listening to his pacing and late-night stirring that’s part insomnia, part avoiding his own nightmares.
I understand that shine in his eyes. I got to metaphorically throttle the bad man who hurt the only boy I loved in this world. And Wes wants to actually throttle the bad man who hurt me. But he’ll have to wait in line.