The Guilty One Read Free Page B

about that, but what I do know is that the future’s wide open, my friend. It only seems like you can’t—”
    â€œYou always got away with what?” Dane interrupted. She closed the gap, shuffling to the edge and resting her forearms on the metal wall, her hands only a couple of feet from Ron. He glanced down and thought about pushing off with his feet, hurtling away so fast she wouldn’t even have time to reach for him.
    Behind her, Esteban muttered something, and Ron figured Dane had departed from their script. But she had his attention.
    â€œIf you come up here, I’ll listen,” she said, speaking low and earnestly. To him alone. “You can tell me what you got away with. Take as long as you like.”
    And the thing was, Ron believed she wanted to help. For some reason—maybe it was the cheap diamond-chip gold cross on a thin chain around her neck, maybe it was the gap between her front teeth, or the way she was pretending it was just the two of them, when clearly Esteban was running the show—he trusted her. Not for later, when there were bound to be all kinds of reports and paperwork and maybe even mandatory evaluations, but in this moment, right now, he trusted her.
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “I don’t really need to, you know. I mean, I know what I am.”
    â€œAnd what’s that?”
    Her eyes were brown, with a tiny scar through one eyebrow that left a furrow of white skin. She had a thin line of royal blue eyeliner above each eye that looked like it took forever to draw on. Deb’s skin had once been every bit as perfect as this young police officer’s.
    There was nothing stopping him from telling her what he was: a monster, receptacle of his father’s rage, a coiled punishment waiting to be unleashed. Maybe not so potent anymore. It had been years since it broke free.
    But that was only because he’d passed it on. The rage had found another vessel.
    He looked directly into Dane’s eyes.
    â€œWe should never have had him,” he said, his voice clear even above the whipping winds.
    â€œAll right.” Dane nodded. “All right. Now give me your hand.”
    And he did.

three
    OUTBOUND TRAFFIC SNARLED by three o’clock, but coming from the other direction, Maris was able to make good time. She kept her hand on her phone as she raced through the city, thinking she should call Alana, call Jeff, call someone, but unwilling to take the time or the risk to dial. That would be some kind of punishment for her hubris, wouldn’t it, if she looked at her phone and got into an accident and therefore didn’t reach the bridge in time. Her dead body laid out in twisted metal and broken glass while Ron’s corpse caught on some sunken flotsam halfway out to the bay. A Greek tragedy of an ending.
    She’d expected ambulances, backups, bystanders out of their cars with their hands over their eyes blocking the sun. Instead there was nothing; nothing but the usual summer weekday traffic, the jockeying at the toll lanes and metering lights. She drove in the slow lane, glancing left and right, seeing nothing but the breathtaking views. On the other side she had to exit and crawl through the jam before she could get back on. And then the same thing, driving the other direction: only a few tourists walking along, enjoying the view.
    At the other end she pulled over, into the tiny parking lot next to the gift shop and cafe. A bicycle cop was just strapping his helmet on while his partner tossed a paper cup into the trash.
    She had to shout to be heard. “My friend—he said he was going to jump.”
    The cop, a dusky-skinned man with a thick beard, shook his head and frowned. The traffic noise was deafening. She tried again, jabbing a finger past the gift shop at the traffic moving slowly onto the bridge.
    â€œI am afraid my friend might try to jump off!”
    This time the cop understood. He nodded and