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Then I rest my head on the cold iron railing. Maybe the curse would fade eventually, but I’d never be sure it was completely gone. I’d never know if the way she felt about me was real. Curses are subtle. Sure, emotion work is supposed to wear off, but how can anyone know? Love shouldn’t be about possessing and caging and keeping. It shouldn’t be stolen.
There never were any good choices.
* * *
I call Agent Jones. I’ve lost his card, so I just call the main number for the agency in Trenton. After a couple of transfers, I get an answering machine. I tell him that I need more time, just a couple more days, just until Monday, and then I’ll give him his murderer.
* * *
Once you decide you have to do something, it’s almost a relief. Waiting is harder than doing, even when you hate what you’re about to do.
The longer I look for alternatives, the darker those alternatives get.
I have to accept what is.
I am a bad person.
I’ve done bad things.
And I’m going to keep on doing them until somebody stops me. And who’s going to do that? Lila can’t. Zacharov won’t. There’s only one person who can, and he’s shown himself to be pretty unreliable.
Yeah, I’m talking about myself.
* * *
Sam’s up in our room, paging through Othello when I come in. His iPod is plugged into our speakers, and the sound of Deathwërk rattles the windows.
“You okay?” he shouts over the guttural vocals.
“Sam,” I say, “remember how at the beginning of the semester you said you went to that special effects warehouse and cleaned it out? How you were ready for anything.”
“Yeah…,” he says, suspicious.
“I want to frame someone for my brother’s murder.”
“Who?” he asks, turning down the sound. He must be used to me saying crazy things, because he’s totally serious. “Also, why?”
I take a deep breath.
Framing someone requires several things.
First you have to find a person who makes a believable villain. It helps if she’s already done something bad; it helps even more if some part of what you’re setting her up for is true.
And since she’s done something bad, you don’t have to feel so terrible about picking her to take the fall.
But the final thing you need is for your story to make sense. Lies work when they’re simple. They usually work a lot better than the truth does. The truth is messy. It’s raw and uncomfortable. You can’t blame people for preferring lies.
You especially can’t blame people when that preference benefits you.
“Bethenny Thomas,” I say.
Sam frowns at me. “Wait, what? Who’s that?”
“Dead mobster’s girlfriend. Two big poodles. Runner.” I think of Janssen in the freezer. I hope he’d approve of my choice. “She put out a hit on her boyfriend, so it’s not like she hasn’t murdered someone.”
“And you know that how?” Sam asks.
I’m trying really hard to be honest, but telling the whole thing to Sam seems beyond me. Still, the fragments sound ridiculous on their own. “She said so. In the park.”
