Sixth Grave on the Edge(107)

“She’s a liar” was all he said.

“I believe you. I was just wondering if you could tell me what you remember about the time Miranda disappeared. It would really help my case.”

“And what case would that be?” he asked. He turned a heated scowl on me. “She’s in prison. What else is there?”

“There’s justice for Miranda,” I said, but it did no good. He was already deflecting, looking me up and down like I was his next meal, even though I felt very little interest emanating out of him. It was a ploy to change the subject. To put me on guard.

“What’s your name again?”

I leaned forward as nonthreateningly as I could and spoke slowly, gauging his reaction to each word I spoke. “My name is Charley, and I would love for you to tell me what you remember about your sister.”

Sister. That’s when his grief, as hot and raw as if she’d died yesterday, hit me in the midsection again, and I suddenly understood why he did drugs. He was still hemorrhaging so much pain, so much guilt over his sister’s death, self-medication was the only way he could deal with it. But there were better ways. I made a solemn promise right then and there to make sure he found them.

“She was missing for a month before they found her body. Do you remember what happened before she disappeared?”

He took another drink and went back to staring out the window, his jaw working under the weight of his guilt.

“Did your mother hurt her?”

He scoffed aloud before scowling at me, his eyes shimmering, a telling wetness pooling in their depths. “What makes you think I’m going to tell you a fucking thing when I didn’t tell the cops shit?”

“I’m not the cops, and I’m in this for Miranda and Miranda only.”

“She’s dead. Ain’t a fucking thing you can do about that, yeah?”

His torment was hard to see past. My own eyes were watering, too, remembering the frightened little girl in the cable car, remembering her despair, her utter hopelessness. Her belief that she had no value whatsoever. “You were a couple of years older than she was,” I said. “Maybe you feel responsible somehow.”

A slow, calculating smile appeared. He leaned forward, closed the distance between us until his face was in my hair, his mouth at my ear, and said, “I’m glad she’s dead.” His breath hitched in his chest, and it took him a moment to say more. “I wish she’d never been born.”

As cruel and unusual as his words sounded, as vehemently said, they didn’t mean what he would have me believe. I felt absolutely no hatred coming from him. No malice or contempt. I felt only a deep reverence and a debilitating, cutting guilt. That seemed to be going around a lot lately.

He pushed me away from him and stalked down the hall. After giving him a moment to gather myself, I followed. I could feel grief pouring out of him, so without knocking, I opened the door to a tiny bathroom. He was in a state of agony as he splashed water on his face. On the sink next to him was a bottle of prescription pills. According to his file, he’d been suicidal for years, and my guess was that those pills were a very powerful pain reliever. It took something powerful to mask that much pain.

I stepped in as he toweled off his face. “Marcus,” I said as softly and as unthreateningly as I could manage, “you do realize you aren’t actually responsible for her death, right?”

He granted me a flirtatious wink. “Sure.”

He opened the bottle, dropped two large white painkillers into his palm, then popped them into his mouth. He swallowed, waited a moment, then sank to the floor as his guilt devoured him. It was why he’d turned to drugs in the first place. I suddenly understood all too well. He felt guilty for not helping his sister when he had the chance. He’d loved her. I could feel it course through him.

“Please tell me that bitch isn’t getting out of prison anytime soon,” he said.

I knelt beside him. Like his sister, he’d been taught from an early age that he had no value. No intrinsic worth.

My torso felt too tight as I inched toward him. “Can you tell me what happened, Marcus?”

“Why do you care what happened to her?” he asked. “Nobody cared. My mother only reported her missing because a neighbor started asking questions. She’d been gone more than two weeks.” He looked up at me. “Can you imagine that? Two fucking weeks before she even considered calling the cops.”

“Marcus,” I said, putting a palm softly on his knee.

He had the towel in both hands, wringing it until his knuckles turned white. Dredging up the memories was taking its toll on him. He took the bottle off the sink and tilted it at his mouth, swallowing at least one more before setting it aside and covering his eyes with one hand. “We’d been evicted and were living in my aunt’s house while she tried to sell it. She married some rich guy from California and said we could stay there until it sold.”