Chapter 27 #2
“Based on the amount of time between the other four videos, my guess is he didn’t have a lot of access to her.”
“Why do think he stopped?” I ask, trying to hold onto my anger.
“Puberty? It would have been hard to explain away a pregnancy and they would have DNA tested every male she came in contact with.”
“So it went beyond touching?”
“On the later videos, yes.”
“I’m going to kill him,” I say, feeling calm for the first time today.
There’s no more moral ambiguity, no more doubt.
Devin needs to die. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never killed anyone and never thought I would, there is no way I can continue to live in a world where that man is breathing.
Those tapes would put him away for a long time, and an inmate would probably un-alive him for me, but that would mean revealing to the world happened to Deja.
I’m not doing that. She deserves to keep her peace.
“That’s not a good idea, Brandon. You don’t want that on your soul. Once the evidence is secured, I’ll take care of him.”
“You’ll kill him?”
“You’ll never have to worry about seeing him again.”
“But will he be dead?”
“As good as.”
I don’t like this answer, but there’s no point arguing with Anton anymore.
I thank him for everything and tell him I’ll be waiting at Rourke’s for an update.
I gather my things, and he orders me a car to take me home.
Instead, I tell the driver to take me to Briarwood.
I need to make sure Deja doesn’t go home.
Even if I do, she must never see Devin again.
Deja
I drag myself to my car after practice. I don’t really have the energy to be social today.
Mackenzie rubs my back soothingly before she heads for her car.
She doesn’t know why I’m upset, but she’s trying to comfort me anyway.
Shelby gave me her chocolate bar at lunch, and it’s her favorite thing.
This whole time I thought if I wasn’t the perfect cheerleader my friends would abandon me, but here they are just trying to make me feel better.
I wish I could tell them why I’m upset, but I can’t.
I’m feeling kind of guilty as well after what Mello told me about Brandon’s life.
Did I judge him too harshly? I didn’t see him at school today.
I saw Rourke going to soccer practice when I was heading for cheerleading and felt a powerful urge to run over to him and ask if Brandon was okay.
Of course, I didn’t. What if Rourke kicked him out already? What if something happened to his mom?
He’s by my car when I get out to the lot, dressed in dark clothes. He looks like a bartender or a waiter at a high-end restaurant. His face is pale, and his expression is hard. Is he angry with me now? Is he here to yell at me.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
He’s standing in front of the driver’s door, so I can’t get into the car until he lets me.
“What do you want?”
“I need to talk to you,” he says. “It’s important and private.”
“I don’t think we work, Brandon,” I say, the words feeling like broken glass in my throat.
“We work. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about. And it’s not safe for you to go home.”
“Get out of my way, Brandon. I’m not in the mood for this.”
“Check your text messages.”
I fish my phone out of my backpack and see the message from my mom.
Go with Brandon.
“What the hell?” I unlock my phone and text her back.
Do you really want me to go with Brandon? Why?
The reply comes back in under a minute.
I’ll explain later, but please go with him to Rourke’s. Whatever you do, do not go home.
“Did you hack my mom’s phone or something?”
“I’m not even holding anything. How could I be the one texting you?”
“Right.” I have no idea what’s going on, but I figure I have no choice but to go with him.
I unlock the car and he climbs into the driver’s seat, holding his palm up for the keys.
I ignore him and get in before handing it to him.
He doesn’t say much as he exits the parking lot.
We pass Shelby and Mackenzie standing by Kenzie’s car talking.
Probably about me. Their eyes follow us as we pull away from campus.
“Did something happen to Devin?” I ask.
“I’ll explain at Rourke’s,” he says, woodenly. “It’s a long and complicated story.”
“But he’s involved?”
“Yes. And so am I.”
“You did something?” I ask, alarmed. He shakes his head.
“There’s so much you don’t know, Deja, I barely know where to start. Let’s go to Rourke’s, have something to eat, and I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
He reaches over and turns on the radio, loudly enough to silence my questions.
Brandon opens his laptop, handing me a can of sparkling water.
I take sip of the grapefruit flavored liquid and place the can on the coffee table, waiting to see what he’ll do next.
He’s been extremely secretive since we got here, answering my questions with “soon” and “you’ll see for yourself.
” But now it’s finally time. I wonder if he’s going to show me surveillance video from the house. But how would he even get that?
He double clicks on a video file, and it starts playing, filling the screen.
I’m shocked to recognize the room, though I don’t remember Devin ever coming to our house.
The camera points at the old sofa I hid behind a time or two playing hide and go seek.
Devin’s sitting on it, and beside him is a much younger Lindsey.
They start talking, and soon I’m feeling queasy and confused.
What is going on? Why is she doing those things.
I hear my mother’s voice and then my father walks into the frame.
“When is this from?” I ask Brandon, more and more disturbed as the video progresses.
Brandon drags the cursor to the top of the screen, showing me the date in the filename. It’s about ten years ago.
“Turn it off!” I tell him when the sexual assault starts. I stare down at my hands, not wanting to believe what I just saw my father and stepfather doing.
“Can you just tell me?” I say. “I don’t want to ever look at something like that again.”
“Are you sure,” he asks, squeezing my fingers. “It’s not the easiest stuff to hear.”
“You wanted me to know,” I snap, an irrational burst of anger taking over for a moment. I’m not being fair, but I can’t begin to process this.
“Those DVDs we found in the basement were exactly what you thought they were—sex tapes. The first one they mostly mess with her, but on the rest there’s actual…r-word.”
He’s using a euphemism for something horrible, but I get it. The victim is his mother. I can’t imagine watching someone do that to someone I love.
“Does she act like that on all the videos?”
“Pretty much. They roofied her first. A—the guy who supplied them the drugs told me what it was. He thought Devin was buying it for recreational use. I guess some people take it to get high. But it was really to drug victims. She has no idea he did it because the drug makes you forget.”
“Wait a minute? You know the guy who sold them the drugs? Does he have something to do with the drugs you’re selling?”
He sighs, looking very uncomfortable.
“His name is Anton. A few months ago he approached me and told me he’d arrange for me to go to Briarwood and pay my mother’s medical bills if I’d spy on Devin and search his place.”
“So you weren’t really looking for pictures to cheer your mom up?”
“I wasn’t not looking for them, but yeah, they weren’t the main thing I was looking for. Ten years ago Devin paid Anton to kill someone for him. He’s still holding on to evidence implicating Anton and he’s now blackmailing him.”
My head spins as he explains the murder for hire, the lost evidence, the reason for all the security at the house and all the crimes he suspects Devin of committing.
“Your mom is retrieving the evidence as we speak.”
“My mom? How did you get her to do that. She worships Devin.”
“I showed her the video. She claims she left the room before things got sexual and that Devin told her they only drugged my mom twice.”
“Twice is more than enough! What kind of woman just stands by and lets that happen to another woman? She just accepted that my dad raped someone?”
“She says Devin told her your dad never touched Mom.”
“And she believed that? What about Devin touching her then? Why was that okay?”
“He claimed it was consensual.”
“And she marries this guy? She has him around me? Jesus Christ! Who are these people? How could I come from this crap? To think I thought you were a bad guy for selling weed when my own parents are so much worse. Good God! Devin is such a hypocrite. He kicks you out for dealing when he’s ten times the criminal you are? ”
I’m hyperventilating, and Brandon pulls me close, rubbing my back. I lower my head between my knees, fighting dizziness.
“Once we showed your mother everything, she agreed to help us.”
“I don’t get that,” I say. “She had to already know deep down. Are you leaving something out?”
He grimaces. “The person Davin had killed was your father.”
“And that’s why she’s turning on him. That’s just fantastic. Is that everything?”
“Almost. Based on one of the videos it appears that Devin gave my mom too much of the drug and that’s what caused her illness.”
“So he’s the root cause of everything bad in both our lives? This guy who sits in church every Sunday like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth?”
“For the most part, yes.”
I take a moment to process everything I’ve heard. It’s clear now why Brandon didn’t want me to go home.
“Are you going to call the police?”
He shakes his head.
“I’m going to head over there. I have some questions I need to ask him.”
“Don’t do anything stupid, Brandon. He owns a gun, and he doesn’t seem to have a lot of scruples.”
“That’s okay,” he says, sticking both hands into the pockets of his jacket. I have a gun too.”
“Where did you get a gun?”
“Don’t worry about it.” Don’t worry about it? Is he crazy? He could get killed and if he kills Devin he’ll spend years, maybe even the rest of his life, in prison.