“Because I’m interested in you, Jeremy.”
Jeremy looked down at the scalpel. “You were nice to me when I was a kid,” he said. “My father and brother—I just reminded them of what had happened to Isabel. I could see it when they looked at me.”
Jeremy’s upper lip started to twitch, and Archie could see the kid he’d met so long ago in the young man sitting in front of him. Lost, damaged, angry. Jeremy’s eyes narrowed with accusation. “I wanted you to take me away,” he said. The corners of his mouth went down and his lips trembled, as he fought back tears. “You know what they do.” His voice rose. “They’re criminals.” His face was so full of pain, it broke Archie’s heart. “Why didn’t you take me away?”
Archie had never thought about it. He’d been so focused on catching the Beauty Killer, on solving Isabel’s murder, on protecting Jeremy from Gretchen and from the press, that he’d never really thought about protecting him from his father. “I’m sorry,” Archie said. It was really all he could think of to say.
Jeremy started to cry. He cried like a child, body rocking, nose running, face pink and ugly. Gretchen had fucked Archie up, but she had broken Jeremy Reynolds.
Jeremy took several gasping breaths, sat perfectly still for a moment,
and then calmly lifted the scalpel and pressed it into his chest below his left nipple.
“Don’t,” Archie said. “Please.” He watched as Jeremy dragged the blade over the heart scar that was there, in an effort to more approximate the scar on Archie’s own chest. But Jeremy was pushing too hard, and the skin split and spread apart, blood oozing from the fatty gash.
Archie put his hand around Jeremy’s wrist. “It’s too deep, Jeremy,” he said. Jeremy was trembling, his face feverish, the scalpel still sliding through flesh and muscle. Archie had to get the scalpel out of Jeremy’s hand. “Why don’t you let me cut myself to look like you?” Archie said.
Jeremy froze and glanced up. It was the first time that Archie saw something clear and solid in his gaze. It wasn’t too late.
Archie held his hand out, palm up. “Give it to me,” he said.
Jeremy lifted the scalpel out of his flesh and looked at it, blinking. Then he wiped the bloody blade on a corner of the towel he was sitting on, and handed the scalpel to Archie.
And waited.
“Okay,” Archie said.
Jeremy was close. Archie felt like he had won his trust. Passed his tests. Now he could do this. Archie had survived ten days of torture at the hands of Gretchen Lowell. What were a few more scars?
He looked at Jeremy’s arms and thighs, the triangle-shaped scars, the scars that Gretchen had carved on Isabel and none of her other victims.
He lowered the blade to his thigh, on the inside, just above his left knee, and he pulled the scalpel over his skin. It was easy. The blade was sharp and it didn’t hurt. An inch-long line of blood formed instantly.
“She had a sock with a brick in it and she’d hit Isabel in the head,” Jeremy said.
Archie looked up.
Jeremy did remember.
And although Archie knew he should be thinking about Jeremy’s fragile psyche, about closing the case, about gathering more evidence against Gretchen, all he could think was: I am not alone.
And he was glad. It was what he was after, wasn’t it? He wanted Jeremy to remember because it would mean that there was someone else who knew. Someone else who had survived. Someone else as damaged as Archie was.
He didn’t want to be alone.
Neither of them did.
Jeremy was staring past him. The half-carved heart on his chest was still bleeding, and Jeremy must have gotten blood on his hands, because it was smeared on his face and arm.
“She swung it hard,” he said. “It hit her here.” He touched his scalp, behind the left ear. Archie remembered Isabel’s autopsy reports. It matched the site of a small fracture the ME had found on her skull. “Then she tied her up.”
Jeremy stopped and looked at Archie, his gaze flickering down to the small cut Archie had managed on his leg.
Archie lifted the scalpel again and drew another line of blood in his thigh. He did it slowly this time. He had to be careful. If he used anything but the lightest touch, the scalpel would cut too deep.
Jeremy continued. “Isabel was in the backseat. I was in the passenger seat. She didn’t tie me up. We didn’t talk. She drove us to the woods.” His voice was flat now, dissociative, like someone reporting the details of a dream. Archie wiped his blood off the scalpel onto the towel.
“It must have been a timber road,” Jeremy said. “She had to get