Bob positions himself at the door, sitting and guarding the entrance. I drop into a chair at the table, andDonny places one mug in front of me, sliding into the chair across from me. The smell is sweet and herbal, and I wrap my hands around the ceramic.
“Seven years ago,” Donny begins, “when I was still with the FBI, my team was called to Maine to investigate a series of murders in Camden.”
The tea scalds my tongue as I sip it. I’m glad for the pain.
“Our profile became clear. We were looking for a white male in his teens to early twenties. Had access to a car. Organized.A psychosexual sadist with extreme rage. But we were hitting walls. None of us could reconcile the extreme violence of Allison Chambers’s murder with it being a young man’s first kill.”
He removes his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “As soon as I considered the involvement of an entity, the crime scene made sense. I thought of vulnerable populations that would fit our profile, which brought me to Camden High School. I used a prototype of a residue scanner through the building and got an exceptionally strong reading at the locker belonging to one Nicholas Grady, who was not in school that day. I drove to the Grady home, where I found Nico in the living room, alone and covered in blood. Billy was still possessing him.
“I had a prototype containment cage with me. It was crude, but enough to trap Billy long enough to buy us some time. When Billy left Nico’s body, Nico collapsed. He had ectoplasm all over him. He didn’t understand what he’d done. He was so afraid.”
I stare at the steam curling off my tea. I, too, would be terrified if a ghost forced me to murder seven people. “You helped him escape?”
“I chose to help him instead of watching him be tried as an adult, convicted of murders he had no control over, and sentenced to life in prison, yes.”
I try to imagine a world in which the police never arrested Stanley Daniels, where he was still out there somewhere sleeping in a comfortable bed surrounded by friends who care about him. I have to let go of the mug because I’m gripping the handle so hard I’m scared I’m going to flip it on the table.
Stanley Daniels was different. He was evil. Nico waspossessedby evil.
“Is it possible that Nico wanted to hurt those girls?” I ask.
“Or he might have been an angry, confused teenager filled with hormones and unprocessed grief after losing his grandfather the month before.”
What happens when Nico loses Donny? He clearly won’t be as vulnerable to possession as he was when he was a teenager, but will Donny’s death make him revert to a similar place as he was when he was possessed? Will I be in more danger then?
“Did Nico have violent fantasies?” I ask.
“Many people have violent fantasies. They simply do not act on them. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you honestly have never considered what it would be like to kill another person? Perhaps someone you don’t like, or someone who wronged you?”
Obviously not. I still have dreams about driving a knife into Stanley Daniels’s eyes until his eyeballs are liquefied. I call those good dreams.
“I can vouch for Nicholas,” Donny says. “If I believed he was a danger to anyone here, I wouldn’t have him in the house.”
I stare at the cooling chamomile, watching the tea darken as the bag steeps. That was ballsy of Nico to say those things to me, knowing how easy it would be for me to turn him in.
“You’re thinking about the reward money,” Donny says.
I’m not surprised he can tell. Even aside from the fact that Donny is, well,Donny, Dad used to say I had a terrible poker face. He always knew when something was bothering me before I opened my mouth.
I don’t want to believe Nico is a monster. I want to believe he’s as much a victim as those girls were, but what if that’s not true?
I try to picture him doing it, wrapping his hands around some girl’s throat, but all I can picture is him standing at my door, holding that mug of soup.
How can he feel nothing?
“I wouldn’t blame you if you turned Nico in.” Donny’s smile is sad. “A sum like that is life-changing money for someone in your position. If you want to make the call, I won’t stop you.”
“Is this some kind of reverse psychology?”
“I didn’t say I’d be happy about it, but I cannot force you to stay here,” Donny says. “And I’m not stupid enough to think you can be controlled, but I sincerely hope you’ll consider this issue from all perspectives.”
I drum my fingers against the side of my mug, hating how well he seems to understand what would get to me.
Donny may not think I’m in danger, but Ifeellike I’m in danger. At least I did in the library.
“Before you make any decisions,” Donny continues, “there’s another thing you should consider.”
Fantastic. Is it another secret? What’s next? Griffin’s actually a werewolf? DJ’s a vampire?
