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“So if I were to try to pin this all on her, they'd immediately suspect I was just playing tit for tat with the person who turned me in. But even if they didn't think that, I'm going to have a real tough time proving that I'm innocent...when I'm not.”
I tell her about that day in the basement with Rita. I'm hesitant at first, but then I don't spare her any details. I tell it to her like I told the doctor. And, just like Dr. Libby, my Libby can't believe it.
“You wouldn't do that. Not without a reason.” And I can see it in her eyes that she knows I had a reason. I know she must, because she listened to my phone call with my dad, and it's not hard to deduce.
“She treated you badly, didn't she?”
“She wasn't good to me,” I hedge.
“She was abusive,” Libby whispers.
I shrug. “If you ask my father, he'll tell you I antagonized her all the time.”
“Well that's bullshit!”
“How can you be so sure?” Even I don't know half of the time. Not after hearing for so long that it was my fault.
“Because you didn’t mean to kill her, for one!”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure what to say.
A shadow crosses Libby’s face. “You didn’t, did you?”
The other Libby asked me the same thing, and the answer to that question is what’s tormented me all these years. Did I intend to kill her? Did I think to myself, “Time to kill Rita!”? No. But the relief that I felt… Sometimes it’s easy to forget it was an accident.
Libby clears her throat, and she has my attention again. I can tell from her face I’ve been silent for too long. “Hunter?”
I shake my head. “No.” Even with my fucked up point of view, I know that's the appropriate answer. I didn't set out to hurt her.
“Were you ever charged?”
I shake my head. “There was no chance. My father kept that shit quiet. Covered it up, even. Bought people off. Tried to get the coroner's report changed. He did get it changed. That’s a big part of the problem. He was in the middle of a tough race, and he thought the truth would be too distracting.” I chuckle sourly as I consider what I’m going to say next. “In the end, Rita’s death and our family’s story of loss is probably what won him the election.”
“So he never called it what it was? He acted like it was your fault?”
“He thought it was,” I tell her bitterly.
“Hunter, that's just not true. You don't have her blood on your hands.” Her voice drops. “She has yours.”
I shrug. I’ve told myself that before, but to little effect.
“Here’s something I don’t get,” Libby says. “Those files from your talks with Dr. Bernard should be inadmissible. Right? They were stolen.”
This is also true, although the files could certainly point the FBI in the direction of the people who were paid. Probably did, if what Dave told Marchant can be believed. The information, which will surely be leaked, will cause a big stink for my family—my father in particular. But, “Even if I don’t face any legal consequences from that incident, and from my father's cover-up of it, in the court of public opinion about Sarabelle, I’m pretty fucked.”
“But there must be some way—”
I sit up straighter and lean my head back against the foyer wall. “There's too much we don't know. All we have pertaining to Sarabelle is a bunch of phone recordings of our villains talking in code. Lockwood—Gunn—if he has a place down in San Luis, our guy's never seen it. And Sarabelle was found in a damn ditch, not sold into Mexico.
“I know.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “But Hunter, we have to try.”
“And wait and see how long it takes them to drag out more of my story? The part about how Rita liked to hit me? The world already knows my mother was an escort. The media is having a fucking field day with all my 'Mommy issues'. You know what it will be like when it comes out that I killed my goddamned child-abusing stepmother.”
“You didn’t kill her!”
I shrug. “It makes no difference to them.”
“What do Dr. Bernard's notes even say? I’ve been to enough shrinks with my mom to know she probably didn’t write HUNTER IS A MURDERER in red caps.”
