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That really doesn’t go well.
* * *
Agent Jones taps his fingers irritably against the pressboard top of the table. The bottle rests in front of him, light making the green glass glow softly. “Let’s go through your story one more time.”
“We’ve gone through it twice already,” I say, pointing to the paper he’s making notes on. “I’ve given you a written statement.”
“One more time,” says Agent Hunt.
I take a deep breath. “My brother Barron is a memory worker. My other brother—my dead brother—Philip—was a physical worker. He was employed by a guy named Anton. Anton was the one who ordered the hits. No one else knew what he was doing. We were his private execution squad. I’d transform someone, and then Barron would make me forget about it.”
“Because he didn’t think you’d go along with this whole deal?” Agent Jones asks.
“I think—I think that Philip thought he was doing right by me. That I was just a kid. That if I didn’t know, then it was no big deal.” My voice cracks, which I hate.
“Would you have killed those people?” Agent Hunt asks. “Without magical coercion?”
I imagine my brothers coming to me and telling me that I was important, needed. That I would be in on the jokes, be a real part of the family, no longer an outsider. I could have everything I wanted, if I would just do this one thing for them. Maybe Barron was right about me. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t even know if I thought they were dead.”
“Okay,” says Agent Jones. “When did you discover that you were a transformation worker?”
“I figured out there was something wrong with my memory, so I bought a couple of charms and kept them on me. I figured out what I was. I even changed something and Barron couldn’t make me forget, because of the charms. Philip told me the rest.” It’s weird to tell it so blandly, without all the horror or the betrayal. Just the facts.
“So you knew that we were talking about people you killed that first time you were in this office?”
I shake my head. “But I figured it out when I looked at the files. And I was able to remember enough to find that bottle.”
“But you don’t know where any of the other bodies are? And you don’t know whose body that is?”
“True. I really don’t know. I wish I did.”
“Is there any special significance to the bottle? Why did you pick that?”
I shake my head again. “I have no idea. Probably it just came to mind.”
“Why don’t you tell us about Philip’s murder again. You’re saying you did not shoot your brother, correct? Are you sure? Maybe you don’t remember it.”
“I don’t know how to use a gun,” I say. “Anyway, I know who shot my brother. It was Henry Janssen. He broke into my mom’s house and tried to kill me, too. I wasn’t wearing gloves, so I just… I reacted.”
“And what day was this?” asks Hunt.
“Monday the thirteenth.”
“What did you do exactly?” Jones asks.
It’s like remembering lines for a play, Sam said.
“Mom had signed me out of Wallingford to go to a doctor’s appointment and get lunch. After, I figured I had some time to kill, so I went home.”
“Alone?” asks Agent Hunt.
“Yes. Like I said twice before, alone.” I yawn. “The front door was kicked in.”
I think of Sam, with an oversize shoe on his foot, slamming the sole against the door. The wood splintered around the lock. He looked satisfied and also startled, like he’d never allowed himself to do anything so violent.
“But you weren’t worried?”
I shrug. “I guess I was, a little. But the house is pretty busted up. I assumed that Barron and Mom had a fight. There’s not much worth stealing. It made me a little more alert, maybe, but I honestly didn’t think there was anyone inside.”
