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There is a roaring in my ears like a tide coming in. “This is some kind of trick,” I shout. “Admit it. Admit that this is a trick.”
“Cassel, you have to listen to us,” Agent Jones says. “The person who did this is still out there. You can help us find your brother’s killer.”
“You’ve just been sitting here chatting with me, and my brother’s dead? You knew my brother was dead and you just let me—you let me…,” I stammer. “No. No. Why would you do that?”
“We knew it would be hard to talk with you after you found out,” Agent Jones says.
“Hard to talk to me?” I echo, because the words don’t make sense. And then something else strikes me, something that doesn’t make sense either. “Philip was your informant? He would never do that. He hates snitches.”
Hated. Hated snitches.
In my family going to the cops is cowardly, despicable. Cops already can do whatever they want to workers—we’re criminals, after all—so going to the cops is kissing the ass of the enemy. If you turn someone in, you’re not just betraying the people around you. You’re betraying what you are. I remember Philip talking about someone in Carney who’d reported on somebody else for some petty reason—old guys I didn’t know. He spat on the floor whenever he said the man’s name.
“Your brother came to us about five months ago,” Agent Hunt says. “April of this year. Said he wanted to change his life.”
I shake my head, denying what has to be true. Philip must have gone to the Feds because he had nowhere else to go. Because of me. Because I thwarted his plan to assassinate Zacharov, a plan that would have resulted in Philip’s closest friend leading the crime family. A plan that would have gotten my brother riches and glory. Instead I got him killed; if Philip is dead, Zacharov must be behind it. I can’t think of anyone else with a reason. And what would Zacharov care about his promise to leave my family alone, especially if he was faced with the discovery that Philip made a deal with the Feds? I was an idiot for believing Zacharov’s word was worth anything.
“Does my mother know about Philip?” I finally manage, throwing myself back down into a chair. I feel like I could suffocate on guilt.
“We’ve managed to keep it quiet,” Agent Jones says. “As soon as you leave here, she’ll get the call. And we won’t be much longer. Try to hang in there.”
“There’s a kitten poster like that.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own.
They both look at me oddly.
I feel suddenly so overwhelmingly tired that I want to put my head down right there on the table.
Agent Jones goes on. “Your brother wanted to get out of organized crime. All he needed from us was to get a hold of his wife so he could apologize for what he put her through. We were going to send them into witness protection together. As soon as we got them into the program, he said that he’d give up everything he had on Zacharov’s hatchet man. Maybe bring down Zacharov along with him. The guy’s real bad news. Philip gave us the names of six workers this sicko killed. We didn’t even know for sure they were dead, but Philip was going to lead us to the bodies. Your brother really was trying to turn over a new leaf, and he died for it.”
I feel like they’re talking about a stranger.
“You find Maura?” I ask.
Maura lit out of town last spring, their kid in tow, once she discovered that Barron had been changing her memories. He’d made her forget every fight she’d had with Philip and remember only some kind of sweet dreamlike relationship. But not remembering their problems didn’t stop those problems from cropping up again and again. Plus, being worked that often results in bad side effects, like hearing music that’s not there.
Philip was devastated when she left. He blamed me more than Barron, which I don’t think is entirely fair, although I guess in the end I gave her the charm that let her realize what was going on. Still, I refuse to feel guilty about breaking up his marriage.
I’ve got enough to feel guilty about already.
Agent Jones nods. “We talked to her today. She’s in Arkansas. We contacted her for the first time about a week ago, and she agreed to hear your brother out; first step was gonna be getting them on the phone together. Now she says she won’t come back, not even to claim the body.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask. I just want this to be over.
“Philip told us enough that we think you have access to information. Information we need,” says Agent Hunt. “You know some of the same people that he did—and you have connections to the Zacharov family that he never had.”
He means Lila. I’m almost sure of it.
“That’s not—,” I start, but Jones cuts me off.
“We’ve been hearing about Zacharov making people disappear for years. Just poof! Nothing. No body. No evidence. We still don’t know how he—or his wetworks guy—did it. Please, just look at some of the cases. See if there’s something familiar. Ask around. Your brother was our first big break. Now he’s dead.” Jones shakes his head with regret.
I grit my teeth, and after a moment he looks away, like maybe he realizes that was a jackass thing to say. Like maybe, to me, my brother was a human being.
Like maybe if I start looking around, I’ll wind up dead too.
“Are you even trying to find who killed Philip?” I ask, since they seem fixated on Zacharov.
“Of course we are,” says Agent Jones. “Finding your brother’s murderer is our number one priority.”
