AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Choking on a sob now, he drops his head and buries his face in his hands. “I was mad, because in my mind, no matter how messed up it was,Iwas the one who was supposed to be special. I was the one who made him happy. Then I found out he was doing it to the others, and I no longer had that father figure who loved only me anymore. It’s so disgusting,” he grits out. “I’m not gay. I like women.” Bringing his tear-filled eyes up to mine, he stops. “I like women, Detective. But when I was a kid, I was Paul’s favorite, and I couldn’t even really figure out why I felt that way. Then Tommy…” He looks to Fletch. Back to me. “Tommy was the first who killed himself. He was thirteen—and that was back when I was fifteen.”
“He killed himself?” Fletch snags a pad of paper and a pen. “Tommy who?”
“Cowan.”
Slowing his breathing, Garret watches as Fletch writes down the name. “Records will probably say something about a wayward teen who took his life because he was in a shitty situation with bad parents. That’s what we were told too.” He looks to me. “A guy can lie about suicides when he runs a youth center for delinquent boys. The statistics are probably there. We’re bound to lose a few.”
“But Tommy wasn’t like that?” Fletch asks. “He was—”
“He was one of Paul’s special boys too,” he chokes out. “Then there was Owen Ayers… That was when I was sixteen. Same story: stupid teen, homeless more often than not, decided to end it. But he was Paul’s favorite, just like I was. And like Tommy was. And Gage. We were all his favorites.”
“What changed everything?” I ask. “What happened this year to make all this go down?”
Garret shrugs. “Gage and I just got to talking, I guess. We didn’t talk much, back when we were kids. Not like…” He shakes his head. “Not like this. Paul isolated us from each other so we wouldn’t figure out what was real and what was bullshit. But kids kept dying, so I told Miss Emilie what I thought was going on.”
“You told Emilie?” Fletch’s head snaps up with a fast jerk. “She knew what Paul had been doing?”
“I told her what he’d done to me,” he clarifies. “And I told her I thought he was still doing it to kids at camp.”
“Did she encourage you to come to the police? Did she help you make a report?”
He sits back in his seat and drops his head until his chin rests on his chest. “She told me she would keep watch and make sure it didn’t happen again. Then she said she would go to camp with us and make sure he left the kids alone.”
“She should have reported it!” I snap. “She failed you by not helping you speak to the police.”
He shakes his head and reaches up to swipe moisture from his cheeks. “I’d already been failed. The first time Paul made me share his bed, my life was over. But if she’d turned Paul in when I told her back then, all the other guys who needed the center would have been failed too. They don’t have homes, Detective. They don’t have food. The center provides for them.”
“So Emilie just let it go on?” I growl. “She stood by and let Paul continue?”
“She kept guard to make sure he wouldn’t do it again,” he counters. “Then she helped him take out insurance policies that would keep the center running indefinitely, even after he was gone. It’s not insurance fraud,” he rushes out. “It was a plan to keep that safe space open for the other guys, while at the same time, removing Paul from the helm.”
“Did she know you were going to kill him?” Fletch sets his pen down and folds his hands over top. “Did Emilie conspire with you to murder Paul McGregor?”
“No. The only thing she did was make sure Chapel Hill would be able to stay open without him.”
“You sure about that?” I wait for him to bring his eyes back to mine. “You’re willing to go down for this on your own? Emilie gets to stay free, and you go to prison for life?”
“I’m going to prison either way,” he counters easily. “And I would’ve done it completely alone if Gage hadn’t insisted on coming with me.”
Sitting back, he holds my gaze and reminds me he’s a killer with that smirk of his. “My life ended a long time ago, Detective. But my actions mean the other guys will have somewhere safe to go. And for that place to stay open, Emilie has to be there to run it. The law wasn’t gonna do right by us.” He shrugs casually, as though we’re discussing what to order for lunch. “All three of us know it. If I’d made a report to the police, I’d have been written off as a trouble-making teen, and Paul would have been given immunity and a cute little fucking trophy for being so amazing with the city’s uncontrollable youth. Now, Paul is dead and soon to be buried. His dick has been destroyed, his hands won’t grab anyone ever again, and just to make sure it was done right, his feet and head were removed too.”
Reaching across the table and picking up the recorder, he studies it. But he doesn’t turn it on. He makes certain his words remain private between three guys.
“The law would’ve failed me, Detective Malone. It would have failed us all. So I took care of it on my own and made sure there wouldn’t be a second chance for the pedophile.”
Setting the recorder back down again, he grins. “Lock me up. Throw away the key. But know that what I did was right. Not lawful,” he clarifies. “I understand what I did was against the law. But it wasright. And there isn’t a soul on this planet who’ll convince me otherwise.”
