28. Kennedy #2
Malachi’s jaw tightened. “I checked. You have no friends in South Dakota. Not a single one,” he said.
“And it’s not just that. When I tried to check the location of your phone and laptop over that winter break period…
well, it seems they were conveniently turned off, meaning that your activity over those four weeks couldn’t be tracked or verified. ”
Oh, god…
I lifted a shaky palm. “It’s really not what you think—”
“I know exactly what it was,” he cut in. “You weren’t in South Dakota with a friend. You were with him . The man who raised you. The man who groomed you. And now you’re pretending you’ve been in the dark this whole time.”
I shook my head furiously. “That’s not true.”
“You lied to everyone all these years,” Malachi said. “And you’re lying to me right now.”
“Please listen!” I said, holding up a shaky palm. “You’re half right, okay? I lied about there being a friend in South Dakota. But I wasn’t with my father! I was at the Elodie Wellness Retreat. You can look it up. It’s real!”
“A wellness retreat?” His lips curved in a mocking smile. “So you were getting massages and doing yoga for four weeks? In South Dakota, in the middle of winter. You honestly expect me to believe that?”
“It’s not that sort of wellness retreat,” I mumbled. “It just has that name to make it sound more palatable than what it really is.”
His smile faded. “So what is it?”
“It’s a mental health facility. It’s out in the middle of nowhere for privacy reasons,” I said softly. “My mom and Ethan arranged for me to stay there for a month after I attacked that guy at CBU. You remember me telling you about that, right?”
“Yes.”
“I actually had a full-on breakdown, but…” I paused, gnawing at my lip for a second.
“I was too embarrassed and ashamed to tell my friends how bad it was. So I lied. I acted like it was all a misunderstanding caused by a panic attack. Then I told them I’d gone to stay with a distant friend to get away from everything for a while.
But really, I was in that facility doing weeks of intensive therapy. I swear, that’s the truth.”
His brows rose. “So if I hack their system, I’ll find your name in the records?”
“Um… no. You won’t,” I said, wincing. “They’re really hardcore about patient privacy, so they don’t have any of their records on computers, because computers can be hacked.
So it’s all done the old-fashioned analog way and stored in files in a secure archive.
I remember them explaining that to me when I got there. ”
“No digitized records to confirm that you were really there,” Malachi said slowly, eyes narrowing. “That’s awfully convenient for you, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not,” I said in a low voice, rubbing my left temple. “Otherwise you could hack into their system and check, like you said before. Then you’d realize I’m not lying.”
His expression turned flat again. “I told you I had two pieces of evidence that you were in contact with your father. Not just one.”
“What’s the second one?” I asked in a small voice.
“You’ve been emailing each other for years.
You send him poems or lines from fiction books, and he replies saying ‘ that’s my favorite book’ , or something like that.
I’m assuming it’s some sort of coded messaging system you came up with together—one I’m yet to crack—but you’ve barely even tried to hide it.
Didn’t even make a burner address or use incognito mode.
I guess you never thought anyone would suspect anything and look in your emails, so you were sloppy with it. ”
“No, no, no. You’ve got it all wrong , ” I said, fervently shaking my head. “I understand what it must look like. Really. But I swear, you’ve got it totally wrong. Please, just let me explain.”
“Explain what, Kennedy?” His eyes narrowed again. “Are you planning on telling me that [email protected] is a different Mark Campbell who just so happens to be a doctor?”
“No. Just let me explain. Please!”
He sneered. “Go on, then. I’m interested to see what you come up with.”
I hurriedly ran through the story about the old grief support group I’d been in several years ago, and the deal I’d made with the older man in the group.
“I know how weird it sounds, but honestly, it’s helped me a lot,” I went on. “And it’s not my father’s email address. It’s just one that Brendan created to mimic him. That’s all.”
Malachi arched a brow. “That’s really the excuse you’re going with?”
“It’s not an excuse! It’s the truth!” I said shrilly. “If you traced the emails, you'd see they all came from a guy named Brendan who lives right here in Corwin Bay!”
He smiled thinly. “I was waiting for you to say that,” he replied, tone dripping with triumph. “And that was actually the first thing I did. I traced the location of the emails he was sending you. Want to know what I found?”
“What?”
“Every single one of those emails was sent to you from a different location within the contiguous United States. None were sent from a fixed IP address in Corwin Bay. In fact, none of them were sent from anywhere in Corwin Bay at all.”
I stared at him, dumbfounded. “But... that doesn't make sense,” I said shakily. “Unless… maybe Brendan uses one of those VPN things for some reason. Or maybe he travels for work. I don't know. I never asked about his job.”
Malachi’s brows rose again. “We both know your story isn’t true, and Brendan doesn’t really exist, but I’m willing to humor you anyway,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me his surname? Then I can find him, give him a call, and confirm what you said.”
Fuck.
“I… I don’t know his last name,” I said meekly. “We only shared first names in the group.”
“So I can’t track him down and confirm your story. Another awfully convenient thing for you.”
My stomach lurched, and I lifted a shaky palm. “Listen,” I said in a hollow voice. “I know how suspicious all of this must seem to someone looking in from the outside. But I swear, you’ve got it all wrong.”
“So that’s what we’re going with? It’s all just a big, unfortunate misunderstanding?”
I gritted my teeth. “It is ,” I bit out. “Like I said, I can see how it looks really bad for me, because I can’t prove any of the stuff I’ve claimed. But it’s all true. I swear. I had no idea my father was alive! I had no idea about any of it!”
“Do you know that you always do the same thing when you lie?” he asked, crouching to my level again. “You talk at double speed, blink much more than usual, and rub your left temple. You probably don’t even notice you’re doing it, but that’s your tell.”
“Actually, I have noticed those things. But I do them when I’m extremely anxious, not when I’m lying!” I snapped. “You’d know that if you really knew me!”
“I do know you, Kennedy. I know you better than you can possibly imagine.”
“No.” I slowly shook my head. “You don’t.
You just think you do. But you can’t really get to know someone from following them around, snooping in their stuff, and peeping in their windows.
You only get to know pieces of them that way.
Pieces that you can wildly misinterpret.
I thought someone as smart as you would know that. ”
Malachi’s lips curved in that maddeningly calm smile again. “You know, Kennedy, this would all be so much easier if you gave up this ridiculous act and told me how I can find your father.”
“It’s not an act! I told you, I don’t know where he is, and I had no idea he was trying to contact me all these years,” I spat.
I paused to take a breath, lifting my chin.
“What exactly was your plan, anyway? Kidnap me and torture me until I fucking email my dad to beg for help? Is that how you thought things would go here?”
“Ah. That’s a good point.” He rose to his full height again. “I haven’t filled you in on the plan yet. Beyond the general revenge part of things, that is.”
As he spoke, he mimed a throat slitting gesture. I swallowed hard and shifted back, pressing myself tighter against the cold wall as my flash of bravado faded.
“So what is it, then?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper now.
“Well, once I realized that you knew your father was alive and were in regular contact with him, I knew I’d have to take you when the time was right, in order to get to him,” he said.
“I thought you might feel a flicker of guilt over your part in the scheme and give me some of the truth at some point. Which you did, in that message you sent me about the book club. But I also knew you probably wouldn't give up his location in the end, because you’d likely want to protect him. And so, I came up with the podcast plan.”
I blinked. “Did you just say podcast ?”
“Yes. Your show. After the Carver .” He gave me another thin smile. “That was my idea.”
I slowly shook my head. “No, it was Freya’s idea.”
“I’m sure she genuinely believes that. But no. It was all mine,” he said, tapping the side of his head. “All part of the grand scheme.”
“How is that possible?”
“While I was getting to know you, I learned about all your friends, including Freya. I found out she was a sound engineering and comms student with a passion for podcasts. That was the lightbulb moment. A little twist of fate, I suppose,” he said.
“So then, about three years ago, I went into the diner she worked at. Disguised, obviously. I didn’t want her to recognize me when I eventually came back to Corwin Bay.
I made sure to sit in her section, and then I started the act. ”
“What act?” I muttered, still completely lost.
“I put on a morose face and sighed a lot. Freya was a waitress who wanted generous tips, so of course she was very attentive and friendly, and she asked me why I looked so down in the dumps,” Malachi went on.
“I told her I was a producer. Said I was having a terrible day because I'd been working on a podcast that was slated to be huge. A true crime show hosted by the son of the Back Bay Butcher. That instantly caught her attention.”