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“I know exactly what you should think, and what you should do! Right now! You should save her! She saved you, right? She was really brave! She put herself way out there for you! It’s only fair! So go do it, quick!”
“I’m not sure it’s that simple anymore,” I said.
The energy faded from Reggie’s face. It went stiff and deathly pale. “Ah. I see. So you think that Cass was playing a horrible trick on you guys,” she said. “And me getting sick is all part of this trick? So she played it on me, too? That’s actually what you think about her?”
Holy shit, the kid was as sharp as a new razor blade. “Reggie, I don’t know?—”
“She didn’t.” Reggie’s voice was haughty. “I know you won’t believe me, because I’m her sister, and because I’m just a kid, but it’s true. I know her. You don’t, not really. You think she’s doing this for money. But Cass doesn’t care about money. She has plenty, because she’s so good at what she does, but she doesn’t care about it. She doesn’t care about fancy clothes or cars or yachts, or any of that stuff.”
“I know that,” I tried again. “But I?—”
“You actually think that she let him make me sick, and then dumped me.”
“Reggie, I didn’t mean?—”
“So I guess I’m, what, like, homeless, now? Once the hospital discharges me, I’ll be out on the street, sleeping under a bridge, right?”
I recoiled at that. “Hell, no!” I said. “You will not be homeless!”
“But I’ll probably go into the system, then, right? I saw this TV show about foster kids. They carried their stuff around from foster home to foster home in a garbage bag. I guess that’ll be me. Except I don’t have anything to put into my garbage bag.”
Holly burst in. “No, you will not!” she announced. “You’ll stay with us!”
Reggie gave her a sad smile. “You’re just a kid, Holly. You keep forgetting. It’s not up to you. I’m not his responsibility. Definitely not if he thinks that Cass is bad.”
“I didn’t say that,” I objected.
“Well, I know that she’s not,” Holly said forcefully. “I know it, and you know it.” She turned to me. “So? Is she going to be a foster kid? It’s up to you, right?”
Fuck. I was not up to a parenting challenge this emotionally fraught right now.
“Holly, now is not the time to discuss this,” I said. “Reggie is staying right where she is until she is better. And we are not having this conversation.”
“That’s no kind of answer,” she told me.
“It’s the only one you’ll get right now. Unless you want to be driven home.”
Holly’s tightly pressed mouth quivered. Her eyes were filled with angry tears. “You turned mean while you were gone,” she said. “You didn’t used to be mean.”
“Home it is,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Remy will drive you back to the?—”
And the phone rang, right in my hand. It startled me so much it leaped up off my hand like a wild thing. I grabbed it out of mid-air, fumbling, almost dropping it. Holly was right next to me, close enough to see what was on the display.
Red. We exchanged shocked glances. Holly turned to Reggie, before I could stop her, or signal her, or muzzle her. “It’s Cass.” Holly’s voice was hushed.
The ringing stopped. A text message notice appeared. I clicked on it. No text, just an attachment. A video attachment.
This could not be good. In fact, this was almost certainly very, very bad.
“Well?” Holly said. “Aren’t you going to look at it?”
We stared each other down. “Not with you breathing down my neck,” I said.
Reggie made a shooing gesture. “Go look at it. Then come back and show us.”
Like hell I would, I thought as I strode out of the room.
It occurred to me that I kept on expecting Holly and also Reggie to be the ten-year-olds that they would have been if their lives had not exploded. Both girls had suffered traumatic loss, terror, violence. They were enmeshed in this whole terrible business, all the way up to their necks.
