“Well, she told you wrong.”
“She had no reason to lie.”
“Everyone has a reason to lie.You just don’t know what hers is yet.”
“Do you think we’ve forgotten the way those assholes from Liberty Line Investigations hounded us before the trial?”Brax asked.
“I told Mary they were a bunch of clowns, but would she listen?Of course not.She never listened to anybody.”
Justin and Brax looked at each other, puzzled.During the trial, there had been a very different dynamic between Linus and Mary Sykes.She’d supported Levi, and apart from providing the occasional soundbite to the media, he’d been stoic in the background.Quiet.Supportive.
“So you didn’t want Levi to get off scot-free?”
“He killed a woman; it seems there’s little doubt about that.You think I wanted to keep him out of prison so he could kill another one?”
“Well, yes?He was family.”
“Mr.Dupré, you’ve obviously come a long way to speak with me, and I’m sure neither one of us wants this conversation to go on for longer than it has to.So I’ll be honest here.I never wanted children.Do you know how many therapy sessions it took for me to admit that?Mary was supposed to be on birth control, but there was an ‘accident.’”He used finger quotes around the word for emphasis.“I told myself it might not be that bad.If she was preoccupied with a kid, then she wouldn’t be meddling in my life anymore, and it worked.She became so focused on Levi that everything else took a back seat.”
“It’s called toxic codependency,” the barista put in.“Look it up.”
Sykes just nodded.“I was the third wheel in that relationship.”
“More therapy,” added the barista.
“You never considered divorce?”Justin asked.
“Every damn day.But you know who Mary’s aunt was?”
Justin glanced at Brax, who gave the tiniest shake of the head.“Who?”
“Eileen Crabtree.SenatorEileen Crabtree.She believed in three things—the Constitution, capitalism, and the sanctity of marriage—and if I’d divorced her favourite niece, that crone would have tanked my career and made my life a living hell.”
“So you stayed married for business purposes?”
“Few people marry for love in DC.And it wasn’t a terrible decision until Mary forgot we were in Washington and not Hollywood.The ‘no publicity is bad publicity’ rule doesn’t apply there, not unless you’re Dax Prescott and your father owns a media empire.”
Sykes wasn’t wrong about Prescott.Last year, the man had been caught on a hot mic saying he could choke a hooker live on camera and Americans would still vote for him, and when the tape went viral, he’d claimed his words were taken out of context.Like many, Justin had wondered how the fuck you could take that out of context.But Prescott had been featured on every TV channel, every radio show, every podcast explaining that he’d been speaking metaphorically.That hardworking Americans were sick of seeing crime on every street corner and he, Dax Prescott, was the only man willing to do something about it.
“I guess I can understand that,” said Brax, who’d stayed married way too long for financial reasons.
“Anyhow, Mary became obsessed with getting Levi out of jail, which at least kept her out of my hair.But the stress killed her in the end.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”Brax didn’t sound sorry at all.
“You need to work on your sincerity,” Sykes told him.“You’d never make a politician.”
“That’s fine.”
“Not like your friend.Congressman Meyer, isn’t it?He sent a card.”
“I’m surprised you left Washington.”
“It was the right time.Things are changing there, and not for the better.”
“Yes, I heard Senator Crabtree passed away.”
“It wasn’t just that.The whole damn government is turning into a circus.In the old days, it was simple—you had the Democrats and the Republicans.Democrats wanted to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, and Republicans wanted to take money from the poor and give it to the rich.Everyone knew their place.”
