3. Ben
BEN
“THIS IS A serious set of circumstances, Mr. Carrera.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“We’re not necessarily suggesting you did, but we’re going to need a little bit more than just your word on that.”
I’ve been sitting in this room for hours, ever since the cops showed up at Trevor’s place. They know what I did. That I killed Mason. That I’m a murderer.
Jayne told them. Liz told them after she found us. After Jayne started screaming. Since they know how it happened, I don’t understand why I’m still here. I might not exactly be proud of it, but there’s no taking it back.
I wonder where my dad is right now. How he reacted when he heard what happened.
“You’re not being charged with a crime, Mr. Carrera,” one of the detectives says. The word “yet” is implicit in the statement. “We just need to understand, for the record, what happened.”
“Mason attacked her. Sadie,” I say, embarrassed to hear my voice crack when I say her name. “I saw them… saw him, and I just… I knew I had to stop him. So I did. It’s the same thing I’ve been saying since I got here.”
There’s dried blood underneath my fingernails.
I wonder whose it is. I wonder if the detectives notice.
There are two of them in here, plus a cop in uniform.
It’s weird to be treated like I might be some kind of threat.
I swear to God, I’m not a threat to anybody.
Or, at least, I didn’t used to be. But circumstances change.
Can’t any of us be a threat to someone else when the circumstances change?
I ball my own hands into fists, squeezing my nails into the skin of my palms. At least now I don’t have to look at the blood.
“Mr. Carrera,” one of the detectives is saying—I think they told me their names, but I wasn’t listening.
“You did what you felt was necessary to protect Sadie Cooper. That’s been made clear to us.
And we understand that Mason attacked you and that you maintain your killing of him was self-defense.
Can you confirm that account of events for me, please? ”
“Yeah,” I say, my leg bouncing impatiently, wondering what he meant by “you maintain.” Do they think I’m lying? Didn’t Jayne tell them what happened too?
“Yeah,” I say again. “I tried to help. But Sadie didn’t need me to fucking try.
” I can hear my voice getting louder, and I know I should probably be staying calm right now.
Knowing that and doing that are two different things.
I never understood what it meant when people said that emotions could “boil over,” but goddamn do I understand it now.
“Sadie’s dead. That psycho killed her, and I killed him. But I was only trying to protect her. Do you understand that? Where’s Jayne? She’ll tell you that’s exactly what happened! She was there!”
I don’t even remember standing up, but my chair clatters to the floor. The two detectives are on their feet in the same instant, and the officer by the door is on me, turning my arm behind my back and forcing me over onto the table.
“Let me go,” I say through clenched teeth.
One of the detectives must have said something similar, because the officer releases me.
“We need you to remain calm, Mr. Carrera,” the detective says. “We know it’s been a terrible night, but you cannot have outbursts like that. Period.”
The officer collects my chair, and I collapse into it. Whatever fight was still left in me after this hellish, never-ending night is gone. In place of the anger, I feel the tears finally start to fall.
“I loved her,” I whisper, more to myself than to anyone in the room. “I loved her.” There’s a lot more I could say, but I don’t.
“I know,” says one of the detectives. “I’m sorry, son. With your family history, we know how difficult this must be.”
Family history.
My tears stop immediately. I was wondering how long it would be before they brought that up—thought that maybe, stupidly, it wouldn’t even enter into this conversation.
But of course it’s what they’re thinking about.
“Carrera” isn’t exactly a common last name around here, and these guys look like they’ve been at the PD for decades.
They were probably here when my Uncle Chris was murdered twenty years ago.
Back then the cops tried to pin it on my dad. Even all these years later, half this town still thinks Donovan Carrera is a murderer.
And now his son is one.
But my dad became one of the most powerful people in town. Hell, in the county, too. The cops will not be treating me the way they tried to treat him twenty years ago. He wouldn’t stand for it then, and I won’t stand for it now.
I wonder again where my dad is. Why he isn’t busting down the door of the police station to reach his only son.
Maybe he is, at this very minute, and I just don’t know about it.
Hell, would they even have to tell me? I turned eighteen a month ago—me and Sadie always did something special together because our birthdays are only a week apart.
I used to love being one of the oldest guys in our class.
It made a big difference on the football field, honestly.
But now I almost wish I was seventeen again.
Then they couldn’t say a word to me without Donovan Carrera looming over them.
God, I wish I could get inside his mind right now.
What does he think about all this? What does he think about what I did?
He must know by now. Everyone must know.
“I don’t see how my family history has anything to do with this,” I say, willing my voice to stay calm.
I already lost my shit once. I can’t afford to do it twice, or even my dad’s name won’t keep me from being treated like a hostile suspect.
“If you bring it up again, I’m going to ask for a lawyer. ”
My statement, and the veiled threat of getting my father further involved in this, has the right effect.
I sit up a little straighter in my chair and summon my dad’s swagger and certainty.
My dad is a total badass. I’m sure twenty years ago, when Uncle Chris died, my dad didn’t put up with any BS from these small-town, know-nothing cops.
And neither will I.
I’m Benjamin Donovan Carrera. I don’t take attitude from anyone.
The detectives have been talking, and I haven’t been listening.
“… Can you do that?” one of them is asking.
“Do what?” I try to sound offended at even being forced to listen to their chatter. Their questions. That’s what my dad would do.
“Tell us about what happened leading up to the moment you saw Mason attacking Sadie in the barn.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to string together the events of last night in my mind. Why did I drink so much? “Yeah, I can do that. I remember everything.”
“Okay,” the other detective says. “Now we’re getting somewhere. You have our full attention, Mr. Carrera.”
“Right.” I run my hands through my hair, which is a disaster. I catch something sticky between my fingers, and I wonder if it’s more blood. Is it his? Or hers?
“We’re waiting, Mr. Carrera.”
“Right,” I say again. “Let me start at the beginning.”