Page 123 of Victory at Prescott High (The Havoc Boys 5)
I stare at her and try to imagine her at my age, with one kid and another on the way.
“He was too old for you,” I say instead, but Pam just shrugs.
“He had money. He could take care of me.” She looks away for a moment, and I wonder if I don’t see some spark of emotion there. When she glances back however, there’s nothing. “The only man I ever loved was Neil, and you took him from me.”
“You let him rape your daughter,” I hiss back, but Pamela’s face shows me nothing. It occurs to me that sometimes people are just broken; struggling and clawing my way toward empathy does nothing, accomplishes nothing. “How long did you know about it?” I ask, and I can see in the casual shrug of her shoulders, it was a long time. “Did you know he was fucking a teenage girl named Kali Rose-Kennedy? That she was pregnant with his kid?”
“You kill her, too?” Pamela shoots back at me, her nostrils flaring. “Because they’re trying to peg that on me.” Oh, shit. I didn’t know that one yet. Where did the guys bury her? I wonder. On Tom’s land? I suppose it doesn’t matter now. With the Grand Murder Party taking blame for most of our crimes, and Pamela taking the fall for the rest, we could really and truly walk away from this thing with ‘clean’ hands. “Neil didn’t love her. He just had desires that I couldn’t fulfill.”
“I hate you,” I tell her, and I mean that. With every single molecule of my heart, I mean that. It’s not like when I say it to Victor or Oscar and what I really mean is I love you so much it hurts, so much that it aches and burns and bleeds from the very depths of my wicked soul. “That’s why I saved you for last. You know that, right? Out of everyone that’s ever hurt me, your betrayal is the worst. It cuts the deepest.” I pause again, wondering if I should ask about Penelope’s things, but what’s the point? Pam either sold them or gave them away or, hell, threw them in a dumpster somewhere and sent them to the landfill. I won’t ever have anything that isn’t in that box marked Old Homework and Assignments in sweet, soft, looping letters. “How did you do it, Pam? How did you kill my sister?”
“Nice try baiting me into a confession; it isn’t going to happen.” She stands up and one of the guards begins to approach the table.
“Tell me the truth or I bury you,” I growl back at her, but she refuses to look at me. “Pamela!” The guard comes over and reapplies her handcuffs, guiding her away from me as I stand there, shaking and panting and probably crying again. “Mom!”
With a snarl, I hit the table with the heel of my hand so hard that I actually cry out, cradling it against my chest as I shove up to my feet and storm over to the exit.
Sara Young is waiting just past the metal detectors, leaning against a wall and smiling sympathetically back at me.
“Did you get anything out of that?” she asks me, but I’m sure she can already tell, based on the wetness glistening on my cheeks, or the way I’m cradling my hand against a chest full of broken, ugly things.
“You mean did I get the closure I was so desperately seeking?” I choke out with a harsh laugh. It isn’t fair. I’m supposed to get some sort of closure. That’s what the list is about. That’s how books work. Movies. Comics. The hero confronts the villain and gets all the answers. But … real life makes no narrative sense. “No.”
I start to head for the door, but Sara reaches out, capturing my upper arm.
“What did you come here for, Bernadette?” she asks, and even though I know I should just yank my arm away and storm out of the building, her brown gaze is clement and indulgent. In her own way, Sara cares about me.
I stare down at her hand on my arm and she very carefully pulls it away, still watching me, dressed in a black cap, jeans, and a Polo shirt. Now that she isn’t playing the doe-eyed police girl, her outfits have changed. I was getting played much harder than I thought by sweet little Sara Young.
“I wanted to know if she really did it,” I say, my voice a hollow echo of its usual self. My eyes narrow and the corners of my lips turn down in an exaggerated frown. “I think that by avoiding coming here, I thought I could avoid the reality of it. But I just … can’t anymore.” I look back up at Sara’s face, dark with a melancholic sort of sympathy. “Pamela murdered Penelope for the crime of … what? Being a victim? Being abused and ignored and cast aside. I don’t understand it.”
