He looks into my eyes, and his are so bleak, my heart sinks. “I’m a good suspect, Libby. They’ll charge me before they pin it to the governor.”
“But why? What makes you such a good suspect?” I get up, ready to launch into a passionate attempt to get his deep, dark secret out of him. But before I can start talking, he bows his head.
“Because. I killed my stepmother.”
I frown even as my throat knots and my stomach slow-rolls. “How?” I manage. “I thought she had cancer.” Everybody knows this. When his father ran for U.S. Senate, his wife Rita’s untimely death was a major part of his sympathetic story.
Hunter slumps down against the wall and pulls his knees up to his chest. He props his forearms there and rests his head on top of them. All I can see is the top of his hair. But I can hear his voice.
Chapter 32
Hunter
I TELL HER everything. I don’t see why not. I don’t worry about how it will make her feel, either. This secret, buried in me for so long now, can’t wait to leap out.
To understand how the FBI knows what they know, she has to understand that Priscilla—or Lockwood, AKA Jim Gunn—found out I spent a year or so talking to Libby back in New Orleans when I was a teenager, and sometime in the last week, the digital file cabinet in Dr. Libby’s inbox got hacked. The information was turned over to the FBI, presumably by Priscilla.
“So if I were to try to pin this all on her, they’d think I was just playing tit for tat with the person who turned in the files from Dr. Bernard. 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 once I get started, I don’t spare her any details. I tell it to her like I told the Dr. Libby. And, just like that 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.”
“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’re not that kind of person, Hunter. I can just tell. It’s not that hard.”
I open my mouth, but I’m not sure what to say.
A shadow crosses Libby’s face. “You didn’t mean to hurt her, 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. That I just snapped and lost my temper—finally.
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 kill her. Didn’t even pre-meditate punching her. It just…happened.
“You couldn’t be charged for something like that. All you did was punch her. It’s not your fault she died from it.”
I shake my head. “There was no chance to charge me anyway. My father kept that shit quiet. Covered it up, even. Bought off the coroner. He was in the middle of a tough race, and the truth wasn’t even an option.” I chuckle bitterly as I consider what I’m going to say next. “In the end, Rita’s ‘cancer’ 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 that she treated you that way and then one day you finally had enough and it led to disaster?”
“He thought it was my fault,” I tell her, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.
“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’re medical files, and they were stolen.”
This is also true, although the files could certainly point the FBI in the direction of the coroner my father bought off. 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.