“What if he was telling the truth? What if he hadn’t done it? What if, I don’t know, some competitor had pledged millions in campaign contributions if Rudy Turrentine died?”
“What if you killed an innocent man.”
“What if I killed an innocent genius. A doctor who could have saved thousands of lives.”
It seemed there was nothing to say to that. He didn’t blame her; he couldn’t come up with a reply either. The water trickled, trickled, trickled away.
“I’ve been used. Haven’t I?”
She nodded.
He made a sound that wasn’t much like a laugh. “It’s funny. All my life, the thing I’ve hated most was bullies. And it turns out, I am one.”
“No,” she said. “Misled, maybe. But you meant to do the right thing. I know that much about you. Believe me,” she said, and did laugh, “I didn’t want to think so. Remember on the El platform, I told you that you’d killed a friend of mine?”
“Brandon Vargas.” The abnorm bank robber who’d killed a mother and her two-year-old. Reno, Vargas smoking a Dunhill behind a biker bar, his hands shaking.
“Once upon a time Brandon and I were close. So I wanted revenge. John had told me that you were a good man, but I didn’t believe it. I wanted you to be a monster, so I could get payback.” She brushed hair behind one ear. “But then you turned out to be. Well. You.”
He weighed those words, the freight behind them. “Brandon. Was he really—”
“Yes. He really did rob those banks, and he did kill those people. The Brandon I knew was a sweetheart. He’d never have done that. But…he did.” She turned to him. “Not every moment of your life has been a lie. Some of the things you did for good really were for good.”
“But not all.”
“No.”
He rocked forward, hugging his knees. “I want it not to be true.”
“I know.”
“And if it is, then I want to die.”
“What?” Her body tensed and her face changed. “You coward. You don’t want to make it right. You don’t want to fix it. You want to die?”
“How can I make it right? I can’t take it back. I can’t bring Rudy Turrentine—”
“No. But you can tell the truth.”
It tripped alarms up and down him, a tingle and vibration up his spine. “What are you talking about?”
“Your boss, your agency—they’re evil. They are everything you say you’re against. You hate bullies? Well, guess what Equitable Services is?”
“And you have an idea how to fix that.”
“Yeah. I do.” She brushed the hair again. “There’s evidence. Of what your boss, Peters, what he did. At the Monocle.”
Now the laughter did come, though there was no humor in it. Of course.
“What?”
“That’s why you really came out here, isn’t it? You’re step two. Step one, make me see the truth. Step two, set me on some mission for John Smith.”
It was hard to gauge the full depth of her reaction in the darkness, but he could see her eyes change. Recognition, and maybe a sense of being caught. But something else, too. Like he’d wounded her.
“I’m right, aren’t I? He wants me to do something.”
“Of course,” she said, and stared at him unblinking. “Why else would he take these chances? And I want you to do it, too. And if you’re done with the woe-is-me bullshit, so do you. Because even if there is a step two, step one was tell you the truth.”
He’d been about to reply, to talk about how he didn’t work for terrorists, but that hit like a kidney punch. The truth. Right. Cooper scooped up a handful of pebbles, shook them. Tossed them, one at a time, to plunk in the stream.
After a moment, Shannon said, “You remember what I said in that shithole hotel? We were watching the news. They were reporting on what we’d just done, and none of it was true.”