A Necessary End (30 page)

I didn't see it coming, how much she really, really wanted to beat me.

I
haven't been able to sleep tonight, so I'm rewatching today's episode of Summer Jackson on DVR. I'm looking for clues: not to her disappearance, obviously, but to how much Summer and the police really know. Summer conceded that Joy seems to be a con woman, and a con woman makes enemies, but then she moved on to the day's “scoop.” If the police have traced any of Joy's victims, Summer either doesn't know about it, or she's not telling. It wouldn't surprise me if Summer and the police have some sort of deal: She only reports what they want getting out.

It might just be for ratings, or because Summer can't admit she's wrong, but she's still plugging Brad Ellison as the guilty party. Her scoop today was a second interview with him.

Lucky for me, Summer isn't going to let a little thing like journalistic integrity or a search for the real killer interfere with her coverage.

Poor Brad. You'd think he'd have figured out by now that he's not going to get a fair shake from Summer Jackson. Either he's an eternal optimist, he's a total idiot, or his self-regard is way too high and he actually thinks he can charm Summer and her viewers.

“I'm ready to come clean,” he says. Indeed, he is cleaner than last time. He's even wearing a tie, and his hair is shorter, less gelled. I can't imagine he had the money for a PR team so he must have smartened up a little on his own.

“I appreciate that,” Summer says, though her voice is hardly welcoming. Neither is her suit, which is a funereal black. For Joy's funeral, or for Brad's? She waits for him to speak so he can hang himself.

He obliges. “Yes, I was dating, but I'm sure Joy was, too. We were separated.”

“The woman you were ‘dating' says you were practically living at her house.”

“She was mad after it came out about Joy. So she exaggerated. I should have told her I was married.” Summer nods sternly. “But the whole thing about how I didn't come over to her house around the time Joy went missing—that's BS. There were a lot of times when I stayed away for a few days. Sometimes I was tired from work, sometimes I just had other stuff to do. So it's not like she made it sound.”

It's a lousy performance. I know for a fact that he didn't kill Joy, and I'm
still
having a hard time believing him.

“You came on my show,” Summer says, “and talked about how you love Joy and wanted to reconcile with her.”

“That's true.”

“Was Joy a con woman, Brad?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Not that I know of.”

“Were you conning people together, or was that her solo gig?”

“I was off working for my money!” His face reddens. Doesn't he know anything? You can't afford to sweat, and you can't afford to flush, and above all, you
cannot
raise your voice at Summer Jackson. She fells him with a look, and when he speaks, his voice is much quieter. “It was hard, being away from Joy, and not having steady work. The truth is, sometimes I was gone for a few days because I relapsed. Crack, and cocaine. I go to NA. I have a sponsor. But it's hard.”

“Have you ever had a blackout during a relapse?”

He turns crimson. “I didn't kill Joy.”

“Who said she was dead, Brad?” It's a clever rejoinder, though it doesn't really mean anything. Everyone's presuming Joy's dead by now.

“To answer your question, no, I don't have blackouts. I definitely don't have blackouts where I drive eight hours and hurt my wife.”

“Hurt her how?” Summer is enjoying this. Whether it's because she thinks she's got a guilty man on the ropes or because she hates all men or because she specifically hates this man (who, admittedly, is no prize, between the crack cocaine and the DV charge and his lies), I've got no way of knowing. But it is good television, her cat-and-mouse routine. There's nothing Summer loves as much as a particularly stupid, meaty mouse like Brad.

She starts showing clips from his previous interview and the interviews with his ex-girlfriend, law enforcement, and even the psychological profiler talking about substance abuse and poor impulse control. She's systematically dismantling Brad, and in rewatching it, I'm starting to feel dirty myself. Yes, she's able to do it because he's a lying dirtbag with multiple arrests; because he used to beat his wife; because he lied to his girlfriend. Most likely, he knew about Joy's scams and might even have participated in some of them. This is not some upstanding citizen being railroaded. But he is being railroaded, that much I know.

At one point, he says helplessly, “Do I look like a guy who's had a windfall?” and that clinches it. I do, officially, feel sorry for him. I thought he might be too stupid to have self-awareness, kind of like some lower species, but no, he gets what's happening to him. He's ready to gnaw his own foot off to escape Summer's trap. I might be the only one who can spring him.

The knock on the bedroom door makes my heart race. My first thought is that it's the police. Despite Summer's dog-and-pony show, they're actually doing their own investigating, which has led them to me.

But that's so preposterous that I need a new thought, and here's one that's more realistic: It's Gabe, and we've drifted so far apart that he feels the need to knock on our bedroom door.

Trevor sticks his head in. His hair is standing on end, like he's been running his hand through it repeatedly and it's so greasy that it's maintaining the form. His hygiene habits really leave something to be desired.

“Did you see the note?” he asks, thrusting the offending paper toward me.

“Yes.”

“He's taking advantage of her, you know.”

“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” I should pump him for information; now's a good opportunity, but I just don't have it in me.

He's clearly amped up and not about to let this go. He begins pacing by the foot of the bed. “Do you think Leah planned it? That's why she told me to go to the movies by myself? Do you think they planned it together?”

“It's not a getaway, Trevor. They went to play poker. They'll be back soon.” But I feel the tiniest seed of doubt.

He's still pacing. “He has feelings for her. You get that, right?”

“They're friends.”

He stops in front of me. “You seriously think that's all it is?”

“Yes, I seriously do. Gabe's got ethics. He doesn't take advantage of young girls, and he doesn't cheat.”

“He's messing with her head. He knows her history.”

Now, this is news. Gabe knows her history, but I don't? “Sit down.” I lean against the headboard and pat the bed. “No more pacing.”

“I just think he's taking advantage of her not having a dad. Acting like he's looking out for her, but really, she has to watch out for him.”

“I'm not following you.”

“You know the story, right?” I nod. I've learned that the quickest way to learn a story is to pretend you already know it. “All kids want
to know their parents. They want to be like, ‘I've got her eyes,' or, ‘I've got his temper.' You know? She doesn't have that. She doesn't remember shit.”

“Because she was so young,” I say, taking a stab.

“Yeah. I mean, do you remember stuff from before you were three?”

“Not really.”

“I bet she doesn't even want to remember. That it was that bad. I fucking hate addicts.”

So Leah's parents were addicts, and she only knew them until she was three. “She got taken away from them,” I guess.

“Well, yeah.” It has the cadence of “duh.” He finally pushes back the sari and sits on the bed.

“And they never tried to come back into her life, right?”

“They might not even be alive, who knows. They might have overdosed. They might be in jail. So she hasn't had anybody, and Gabe knows that, and for some crazy reason, she trusts him—”

“She should trust him. He's a good person.”

Trevor cocks his head at me. “He doesn't give a shit about Michael. You get that, right? I'd feel better if it was just you and Michael, to be honest.”

“Is that how Leah feels?”

“No! I just told you, she trusts him. More than you, actually. Which is nuts.”

“That is nuts.” I knew from the texts that she didn't like me, but she doesn't trust me?

“You know about all the foster homes and the group homes and about her having, like, nowhere to go once she aged out of the system last year”—I really didn't know any of that, so go on—“but I don't think you know the most fucked-up part, and why she's so susceptible to what Gabe's trying to do. If I tell you, you can't tell Gabe, though. Deal?”

“Deal.” Gabe didn't tell me about the addict parents and the
group homes, so it's only fair that he should be in the dark about something, too.

Trevor takes a deep breath. “So when Leah was eight, she was going to get adopted. She'd been in a bunch of different foster homes by then, and she never got along with the parents, or they didn't get along with her, whatever. It's hard going into other people's houses, you know?” Not that she seemed to have any problem with it a few months ago. “It's like, they have all their routines and you're just supposed to fall in line. Like, nothing's planned around you, there are always other kids.”

“I can imagine.”

“But when she's, like, seven and a half, she starts living with this couple. They didn't have any other foster kids, they were just totally devoted to her. They were in their forties, she said. The guy saw that she liked art and he encouraged her. He made a big deal out of her, like she was really special.” He looks at me pointedly. “Sound like anyone you know?”

I've never heard Gabe make a big deal out of her, but I have to admit, he encourages her art. I tried to do the same; I just never got anywhere. She's been all about Gabe since her plane first landed. Trevor might be onto something. “I'm listening.”

“Leah wasn't going to make it easy on them, even though she wanted her own family, like, bad. She didn't trust people, especially nice people. She'd met them before and they always turned out to have something wrong with them. Like in one foster family, there was the nice uncle, and you know the deal with those guys.”

I stare at him. “Are you saying she got molested?”

“Well, yeah.” There it is again, the “duh.”

“How old was she?”

“Five or six, maybe.”

I shake my head. If she were mine, I'd have killed him. I'd have cut his dick off, no question. But she didn't have someone like me to protect her, or it never would have happened, any of it. All this time,
I've been thinking she had parents somewhere whom she was ignoring. I never imagined. Gabe never told me.

“That's evil,” I say.

“You want to hear evil, I'm getting to it.”

“What did he do to her, the guy who was going to adopt her?”

“He broke her down, man. All her walls. He got her to love him and believe in him. That couple got Leah thinking she was going to have a family. She let herself want that again, even though it's so scary for a little girl who's been fucked over, you know?” I see he's almost crying for the girl Leah used to be.

“She didn't get adopted, did she?”

“The wife got pregnant. It was a surprise, they said. A miracle. They didn't think that could happen to them or they never would have taken Leah to begin with. They decided they didn't have enough for two kids—not enough money, or attention, or love. So they chose their real kid.”

“Shit,” I whisper. Leah was eight, just a little older than my kids at school. A little older than Angie with her Pippi Longstocking braids. How would a child that small metabolize a rejection that large? She'd never have the faculties. And she wouldn't even have anyone to help her. She'd be all alone in the world, adrift, floating on to the next foster home, and when she got too old for that, group homes. That was Leah's life.

“You know what made me sick? It was how they tried to still seem like good people. Leah said they were both crying when they told her, and they wanted to visit her in her new foster home. They said they'd give her references—
references,
like it's a job interview!—so that the next people could know how great Leah was, that all she needed was a little love, and bam, she'd open up like a fucking flower.”

“But Leah wouldn't give them the satisfaction.”

“No way. She didn't want anything from them. She shut down and never saw them again. Never connected with anyone she lived with. They were all just a bed and a meal to her. That's why she liked
the group homes better. They weren't pretending to be family.” He stares at me hard. “But Gabe—he's pretending like he's her family. Teaching her poker, telling her how much he likes her art.”

“He likes poker. He does like her art.”

“Somehow, her bullshit detector is turned off when it comes to him.”

“Why are you so sure he's bullshitting her? What does he have to gain?”

The vein in Trevor's neck throbs. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“You're wrong about Gabe. What you see is mostly what you get.” I wish I could sound more definite, but why didn't Gabe tell me about Leah's past? Did he think I'd use it against her? I'm not some kind of monster. Or does he just like having a secret with her?

“‘Mostly' isn't good enough when it comes to Leah.”

I smile at him. “She's lucky that she has you. I never knew how protective you were until now.”

“I just think you need to understand Leah. She can't be blamed for anything fucked up that she does because the most fucked-up thing of all has already happened to her.”

“Wait, what are you saying? Is she going to do something fucked up to me, or to Gabe? Or to Michael?”