Page 53 of Plain Sight

Oh, Jamie.

“I’m not saying I love her in a surface-level way. It’s way deeper than that. But it still hurts.” It hurts a lot. Even now. “It really hurts to love somebody like this. It’s worse than loving Gabriel and Mason and Remy and waiting—waiting for something to happen to them. It’s even worse. If loving her hurts this much, then I have to try something different.”

You don’t.

“We can talk about this later.”

Go home.

“I will.”

Jamie.

“I’m done being a coward, Mom. I’ve had my principles and my standards for crimes, but I’m not going to be a coward about this.”

If you stop, you won’t be a coward. You’ll be my son.

“Won’t I be your son anyway?”

Yes.

“See?”

Jamie.

“Yeah?”

I get out my knife to rip some rags in two and slice my finger open.

“Ah, fuck.”

There’s a decent amount of blood, but not too much, in the scheme of things. I stick my finger in my mouth and do my best to suck it off. Then I wrap it in the hem of my shirt and squeeze.

I’m here with you.

“Not really.” I let out a sigh that tastes like accelerant. Did I get it in my mouth? “You’re in my head. Because I’m going crazy.”

You’re not going crazy. You just need to rest. You don’t have to keep looking for what you need. You already have it.

“Not all of it.”

I have a lighter in my hand.

“I never found proof that Walsh is the one who killed you.” I click the lighter a few times, watching the flame rise, then gutter. “You think it could be in the judge’s house? This is the one place I’ve never looked.”

Jamie.

“I’m gonna look.”

Instead of starting the fire, I slip Lily’s house key into the kitchen door.

It opens.

The house smells good. It smells homey and comfortable, like a nice place for a little girl to grow up. I can almost feel Lily in the silence. The scent of her is barely here anymore, because she lives with me now, but—yeah. There it is. She must’ve had breakfasts and lunches and dinners in this kitchen and dumped out her bucket of candy on Halloween and blown out candles on her birthday, all right here.

It’s almost a shame it all has to die in a fiery conflagration.

I’m sure there’s stuff upstairs, but in my methodical, criminal way, I circle the ground floor first. Oh, look! A ground floor office. I’m blessed.