Page 27 of Hunter or Hunted

A moment of silence passed. When I glanced at her over my shoulder, her face squished up in a pout. “What makes you think she would?”

“Basic human psychology.” Bowl in hand, I slid out one of the drawers. The right one, luckily. Silverware laid neatly across it. I grabbed out a fork and turned to face her. “She’s a mom. She loves her daughter, and that same little girl’s father is the man you killed. Even though I’m sure she’s grateful he’s gone, if she goes to jail, where does Junie go? No matter how much she loves you, she loves her daughter more. If she has to choose, she will choose Junie.”

“She won’t have to,” Gwen said.

“She hasn’t up until this point, which is great.” Using the fork, I sifted the spices into the flour. “But if the cops come knocking, if she is faced with the possibility of prison, orphaning her daughter, something changes. When that real possibility is put before her⁠—”

“She won’t.” Rather than a pout, fire shined in her eyes. “She wouldn’t turn me in, Sebastian.”

I dropped the fork into the bowl and raised my hands in surrender. “Fine. If you say so.”

There came that pout again. She folded her arms and leaned back in her seat. “That’s what I’m talking about. You act like I’m naïve. Like I’m stupid or something.”

“I’m not saying you’re stupid. I’m saying you don’t know. You don’t know how she will feel unless she is put in that situation, and she hasn’t been,” I said. “Simone isn’t like you. You grew up in a shady environment, you know how to deal with cops, but that’s not Simone’s background. She was a sweet little suburban girl. If the cops come, and they know something⁠—”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” Gwen pointed at me. “You think you know everything, and you don’t. You didn’t see her that day. When Rhiannon found the bruises on her face, you didn’t see how she lied. It was so close to the whole story, so close to the truth, but she veered at just the right time. Her expressions were perfect, her inflection—everything. She told Edwards exactly what he needed to hear, and nothing he didn’t. And she doesn’t know enough to convict anyone anyway. It’d all be he said she said.”

Fine. Simone had already lied to the cops to cover for Gwen, and she would do it again. But that last line proved my point, whether Gwen realized it or not.

“What does she know?”

“Nothing, really. Just that I did it.” She shrugged. “That I stabbed him, got rid of the body, and got rid of his car. She doesn’t know where or how. Maybe I made a comment once or twice about how I could’ve used her help getting his body into the trunk, but she doesn’t know where I took it. She has no physical evidence.”

I nodded slowly, trailing my tongue along my teeth.

Gwen narrowed her eyes again. “What? What’s that face for?”

Turning back to the stove, I reached to the back of the cabinet overhead for the bottle of vegetable oil. A cast-iron skillet already lay on the stove. I filled it with oil and flicked the temperature up. “Why’d you make that call?”

“What?”

Meeting her gaze, I leaned against the Formica countertop. “Why were you so careful about what you told her?”

For half a second, the anger in her eyes vanished. Defeat shone in those deep pools of blue.

This wasn’t about winning the argument. But she wanted to have this conversation, and the dangers of it required an advocate for the devil. “Is it because the less she knows, the safer you are?”

“You know everything.” She glowered. “How do I know you aren’t gonna turn me in?”

“You don’t.” I shrugged. “But I won’t.”

“Why?” She paused. “I asked you about the other night, and I don’t think you ever gave me a clear answer then either. Why did you help me get away with murder, Sebastian?”

The words fell from my lips without thought. “Because I love you.”

“You didn’t love me then.”

“Of course I did. I’ve been in love with you for months. Maybe since I met you.”

Her stiff posture, her narrowed eyes, softened. Only the slightest bit. Enough to assure me that we weren’t fighting each other in this argument. We were fighting the concepts and ideas themselves.

“But it’s not even that,” I said. “I’ve been where you were. I just had a better leg to stand on. I had my land. I had somewhere to bury the body. I understood that you did what you had to, even before I knew the whole story. Because I’ve been there too.”

Softening my voice, I shook my head. “I put David’s body on top of Jason’s because they deserved to lie together for eternity. Because they were the same, because our stories were the same. Because I got away with it, and I knew that if I did for you what I did for myself, you would too. And if I’m wrong, if we do go down, we’re going down together. I won’t let you sink for this.”

Her voice was tender when she said, “I won’t either.”

“I know.”