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Although she couldn’t see who’d just spoken, Ismay recognized the voice. She twisted around to see Bastian coming up behind her, wearing swim trunks and carrying a towel, and nearly groaned. She’d chosen the public beach for a reason, had never dreamed he’d follow her here—not when he’d insisted the private stretch of beautiful white sand at the cottage was so much better. Apparently, he was more interested in company than privacy; he was always eager to put on a show.
“I thought you were going to see your friends today,” she said, covering her irritation and disappointment with a friendly voice.
“It’s such a gorgeous day I decided to put them off until tomorrow. Maybe then I can convince you to join us.” He winked as he laid out his towel and dropped down on it. “What are you reading?”
Crime and Punishmentsat next to her. After waking up to a text from Bo this morning, telling her he’d finished the book and left it under the cottage porch for her, she’d gone out to retrieve it and added it to the contents of her beach bag. As he’d mentioned, it was a library book, so she needed to read it sooner rather than later but she hadn’t been able to sink into the story. She was too preoccupied with how she was going to track down Remy’s connection to the girl who’d lost her life in the fire and determine if it meant anything.
“Just an old classic,” she told Bastian as she watched three kids toss around a beach ball nearby.
He lifted his sunglasses as he picked up the book. “I’ve read this.”
From what she’d heard, he never really applied himself to anything, so she was somewhat skeptical that he’d actually read such a tome. “Did you like it?”
He thumbed through the book before setting it back down. “I did, actually.”
She suspected he was lying, but she didn’t press him. She’d moved on toThe Psychopath Testby Jon Ronson, anyway, something she’d downloaded to her e-reader a couple of hours ago. At the moment, she was much more interested in the subject of that book and various facts she’d been looking up on the internet via her phone.
According to what she’d read, up to 30 percent of the population had some level of psychopathic traits. Most weresubclinical, meaning they weren’t violent offenders, but they were callous and selfish enough to lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, and hurt people in other ways. She found it interesting that such individuals gravitated toward jobs that held some respect and power—like police, clergy, and CEOs.Doctorwas also on the list, but so waslawyer.
Maybe none of it had any real meaning. The whole point of Ronson’s book was how dangerous it could be to classify someone as a psychopath according to some standardized test that could easily be too simplistic a measure for anything as complex as human thought and behavior—and therefore prone to error.
Still, psychologists had to work with something to try to protect the general population. Most used the Hare Psychopathy Checklist, or PCL-R, theRstanding for the revised edition, which a Canadian forensic psychologist had developed in 1985. It listed twenty traits—everything from lack of emotional depth to parasitic lifestyle to grandiose sense of self-worth—to measure traits of psychopathic personality disorder.
If she were being brutally honest, Ismay could imagine Remy fitting within the 30 percent. That was what her intuition seemed to be telling her—that he had some traits that might cause problems down the line. But she couldn’t imagine him actually hurting someone, could she? Could he also fall within the 1.2 percent of US men who had enough psychopathic traits to be clinically significant?
Supposedly, 20 to 30 percent of US prison populations were psychopaths—but the smartest ones never got caught, and Remy was certainly smart. She’d read that psychopathy also tended to run in families, which didn’t surprise her. Bastian seemed to possess far more of the characteristics on the checklist than Remy—lack of emotional depth, callousness, poor behavioral controls. He also abused alcohol, which was listed as an indicator.
“How long do you plan to stay out here?” he asked when she went right back to reading. Obviously, he’d been hoping she’d entertain him—or, more accurately, let him entertain her.
“I’m waiting for Jack to join me,” she said without lowering her e-reader.
“Why isn’t he here now? What’s he doing?”
She figured she might as well tell Bastian that Jack was helping Bo. If he found out on his own, it’d look like they were trying to hide it. And once Bo and Jack started fixing the fence around the garden, they’d be in plain sight of the cottage. “He’s helping Bo.”
Bastian’s eyes widened. “Helping Bo do what?”
“Fix the roof and water damage at the bungalow. Jack’s good with his hands, and he was looking for something to keep his mind off his troubles.” She was tempted to elaborate, but she’d learned in law school that sometimes less was more, or at least the smarter way to go.
“We’re paying Bo enough that he can hire other people?” Bastian asked.
Ismay was tempted to take issue with thewein that statement. His parents were paying Bo. Bo didn’t work for him or Remy. But she bit her tongue. What she needed to do was act like she wasn’t all that involved, so that Bastian would drop his guard. “Jack’s doing it for free.”
He scowled at her. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Of course it does,” she replied mildly. “Like I said, he needs something to do. And Bo could use the help.”
His dark eyebrows slammed together. “Does Remy know?”
“I haven’t told him yet. I’ve been trying to leave him alone as much as possible so he can study. Besides, I can’t see why he’d care what Jack does.”
“It’s just...weird.”
She pulled her knees in and hugged them to her chest. “What’s weird about wanting to help? Jack grew up on a farm. He’s used to working hard.”
A skeptical expression settled over Bastian’s face. “Are you sure you aren’t trying to help Bo instead of your brother?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, even though she knew exactly what he meant.
