Page 128 of Joey

“What did you see?” Brooke asks.

“I saw…” I look at her. I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want anyone to know this secret. But I have to.

There is only one way out now.

Be me.

Stop pretending and be me.

“I saw news clippings. And pictures. And there was footage, you guys. Playing on a big screen TV in my father’s office. It was wars. All over the planet. And bodies. In mass graves. Torture, and rape, and mutilation, and kids, and every bad thing that has happened… shit going back more than a hundred years.” I stop and look at her. Because her mouth is open in shock.

I’m going to lose her.

I’m going to lose all of them.

“It was us,” I say, sealing my fate. “All of it. Everything that’s happened all across the globe. It was us. That’s what that money is for. We fund global wars. And in my father’s office that night were a whole bunch of… Johnnys. That’s the only word I have for them. They were just like Johnny. So they were accomplices, or they were good little soldiers, or who knows, maybe those dudes run this shit.”

It’s only now that I notice Wald has pulled over to the side of the highway and the truck is idling. He’s gripping the steering wheel tight. Huck is hidden from my view. Looking straight ahead.

Brooke is staring off into space.

“We’re the bad guys,” I say. “Michael Conner was right. We are the bad guys. But here’s the thing. I don’t think we’re in charge. I think there are people out there even more mental than Johnny Boston. Because my father was beaten to within an inch of his life that day I went up to his office and saw something I shouldn’t have. They beat him because he wanted to stop. That’s what they kept saying as they were kicking him in the stomach and pounding his face into the floor. “You wanna quit? You think you can quit?” That’s what they were yelling while I was hiding in the stairwell like a goddamned coward.”

Cars whiz by on the highway. Shaking the truck.

And then I whisper, “It’s not our money to stop taking.”

I look at Brooke. Right into her pretty brown eyes. “So maybe you’re right. Maybe that place is where Maisy belongs. Maybe I should remain no one to her. Maybe this whole fucking thing is just stupid. Maybe we should all go home, get back to work, and forget I even have a daughter.”

“What are you saying?” Brooke asks.

“I’m saying…”

I see the fear in her eyes. That if I don’t get what I want out of this bargain, she won’t get what she wants either.

But the words come out anyway.

“I’m saying we’re done.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - BROOKE

There is no more talking.

Joey’s last words were final.

I have to be honest. When we moved into this house on Wednesday it didn’t feel much like a home. We’ve spent a total of two nights here.

But when we drive through the gate and pull the truck up in front of the garage and watch the gate close behind us, there is an identifiable sense of relief.

There is that sense of home. That everything is better now, even though nothing has changed.

We don’t even talk when we go inside. No one makes any decisions. We just all walk to the master bedroom and start taking off our clothes.

Maybe it’s because we don’t want to be alone. Not after the revelation that evil runs the world and one-fourth of our foursome is directly involved. Or maybe it’s because there’s a whole lot of ‘we just lost a major battle’ feelings going on and we need each other like salve on wounds.

Or maybe Joey was being literal and we are done?

Maybe this is over and we all know it? But we want to cling to this short new beginning just a little bit longer?