Page 142 of Dead Vengeance

I laugh. “That’s funny coming from you.”

She laughs too. Then, finally, her voice goes back to sad, and she tells me, “We’ll be all right.”

My heart cracks. Because this time tomorrow, I know we won’t be. I know, the minute she makes that call, we’re back to square one.

She’ll be broken. I’ll have to quit, if I haven’t been fired already. I’ll be broke again. Useless. And all this with Archer, it will be gone. Dust on the wind. Because he can’t be expected to wait another six months for me to get out of the house again. Then, in a year’s time, for this to repeat itself.

I shove back the tears that want to spill, push down the pointless anger and frustration, and manage to reply, “We will be. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Night, Liam. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mum.”

I click the phone off and sit down on the desk, my mind reeling, an abrasiveness rising up in me as I try to steel myself for what’s coming.

The call.

The tears.

The breakdown.

But now, beneath it, the anger. The fury. The swelling rage deep in my gut.

“Archer?” I ask quietly.

His lets a filing cabinet shut itself as he comes to me and sits on the desk by my side, as if what I have to say is going to be of vital importance.

Maybe it is.

“I think… I think I’m going to go and commit some crimes tonight.”

“Um…” He takes a moment, looking pointedly around the office. “We’re already committing crimes, aren’t we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, we are.” I nod solemnly. “But I think I’m going to add a few more items to my perp sheet. Um… maybe… down… at the police station…”

Archer nods slowly. He doesn’t yell at me, or try to argue, or… anything.

So I ramble out, “I think you should go home. I’m going to… Um, listen, if I get one phone call in the morning—”

“Liam, can we pause here and think—”

“No. We can’t. Not anymore. That was Mum on the phone. And she just reminded me that tomorrow is the anniversary of Jem’s disappearance.”

I can feel his eyes on me, his breath tight, waiting for me to explain.

I do it as briefly and as basically as I can manage, like pulling out a long row of stitches. “Every year she calls Marsden on that day. She calls and asks what he’s got. And every year, five years running, she gets the same answer. Sorry. No leads. Trail’s gone dead. So every year, just when it feels like we’re getting somewhere, emotionally, that gaping black hole opens up again and swallows her. And me with it. And I can’t. I can’t do it anymore. Not this year. Not knowing what I’ve learned today.”

“So what do you want to do?”

My eyes flick over to find his as caring and patient as ever.

“I want to make him tell her the truth. That he’s dead. And, whatever the fallout of that is, I just think… she needs to know. She needs to know once and for all. And if she falls apart, then I’ll be there. I’ll pick her up. But maybe this time, if we stop reopening this wound, every single year, maybe she can finally start to heal, you know?”

He draws my hand up, toying with the tips of my fingers. “What’s your game plan? You’re going to go over there, and you’re going to threaten him with some kind of blackmail unless he gives you all the details about your brother’s case?”

“Yeah.” God, it sounds so weak. Even I can see that. “I know what happened,” I argue. “Maybe I can say I have a source. A criminal source. And that they’ll speak. Or that I’ll go to the press. Or some kind of tribunal. Something like that.”

He runs those little circles around on my fingertips, as if the movement is helping him meditate on these ideas. “It’s a dangerous game, Liam. You could be threatening to destroy his whole career.”