20
“I met Brandon at the park,” I went on, looking out the window now. I couldn’t look at Lucas anymore. “That’s important. We didn’t go to the same school. The park near my house was this huge, wild tangle of nature, with a forest and hiking trails. I used to go into the woods to sketch on these huge boulders. That’s where I met him. He liked to smoke there and I thought he was cool because he smoked for real. You know, not like a kid pretending to smoke. He smoked like he knew what he was doing, like a grown up. Remembering it now it seems absurd, but I was so impressed with him at first, even though he was a year younger than me. He never said much, which was so different from all the boys at my school. He had these intense dark eyes. And he was cute. He called me Katie Kat. We met up every day for a week and a half and I called him my boyfriend, in my head anyway. A week and a half. That’s all it took.
“I didn’t tell Emily about him, which I was really glad about later. It was the first thing I’d ever kept from her.” My mind reeled as I said this, because I’d lied to her so constantly every day since. “I didn’t know it until…after, but Brandon never told anyone, either. If what happened next hadn’t happened, Brandon Tomko would probably be erased from my memory by now. There wasn’t much to our relationship, really. We never even kissed. But what happened did happen, so Brandon and those days we spent together in the woods are now and forever a major event in my life that I can’t ever escape.”
My voice quavered and I felt Lucas’s hand cover mine. His thumb smoothed the skin on the back of my hand and I knew that I’d been wrong. Whatever might happen in the next little while, I hadn’t lost him yet. He was still here with me. It gave me the strength to go on.
“Tommy Wesley was five and Ricky Wesley was nine. I was their babysitter. It was my first babysitting job. I’d watch them two or three times a week after school while their mother was taking a class. Copywriting, I think. I wasn’t a very good babysitter. Mostly I’d just let them watch TV for three hours straight, which was completely against the rules. Tommy would sometimes talk me into playing trains with him. He adored trains. If he hooked up all the toy trains he had—which he did once—it made one gigantic train that stretched all the way from the kitchen to his bedroom door. He was a cute kid, very cuddly. He still had that baby sweetness. It was Ricky that was the problem.”
“I don’t remember ever reading about a brother,” Lucas said, frowning, pulling me out of my story for a moment.
“Yes, you do,” I replied, my eyes on the sycamore across the street. “At the funeral he tried to climb into the coffin to be with his brother and an uncle had to drag him away, screaming.”
The papers had printed that detail over and over the week of the funeral. I knew Lucas would remember it. Everyone did. The dead child, the inconsolable brother, the sobbing parents, the nation in mourning.
The tears that I had wrought.
“Oh, right,” Lucas said grimly, remembering. “Keep going.” He squeezed my hand.
“Ricky hated me,” I said. “He didn’t want a babysitter. He thought he was old enough to stay on his own. Remember, I was only four years older than him. He would spend the afternoons doing anything he could to get rid of me. He broke a vase and said I did it. He played too rough with his brother, and when I pulled him off he accused me of abusing him. He poured soup into my backpack. Basically he acted like a total brat. By the time I’d been their sitter for a month, I hated him, too.”
“On the day I regret the most, the day that started it all, I met Brandon in the park when I was done babysitting. It was already getting dark, but I knew he would be there. I was excited to see him, because usually I could never think of what to say to him. I didn’t know how to talk to boys. But on that day I had plenty to say. And I remember word for word how I started. I said, ‘I want to kill Ricky Wesley.’ Then Brandon put out his cigarette and said, ‘Tell me.’”
I felt the tears building behind my eyes, threatening to fall, but it was way too early to start crying. There was so much more to go. I sucked in a shuddering breath and felt Lucas’s hand on my back, his legs pressing against mine. When I’d started the story he’d been sitting all the way on the other side of the bed, but now he was right in front of me. I wanted to lean into him, but I didn’t. I needed to hold myself up as I told this story. I needed to be strong.
“I ranted for a long time. About how much I hated Ricky, what a brat he was, how mean he was for no reason. That day he’d slammed a door and my finger had gotten caught. I was sure he’d done it on purpose. I used all the most vicious words I could think of to describe him, mostly because I thought Brandon would be impressed if I cursed. I never even mentioned Tommy. I figured Brandon wouldn’t want to hear about the sweet five year old I liked to hang out with after school. The evil one was a lot more interesting. But this omission would turn out to be the biggest mistake of my life. It meant that in Brandon’s mind I only babysat one kid. One kid I wanted dead.
“After about an hour of cursing Ricky I started to lose steam, and that was when Brandon took over. He wanted to know how I would kill him. Would I set him on fire? Hang him in the closet? Chop off his head? In retrospect the excitement in his eyes should have set off warning bells, but…I was the one who’d brought it up. I thought he was excited by my hatred, my passion. I thought he was interested in me, when really…” I bit my lip.
When really it was the kill that turned him on.
“Brandon thought sawing off his fingers one by one would be fitting, followed by his arms and legs and head. But I disagreed. I said—” I choked on the words. My head fell into my hands as the first tears begin to fall and I knew I’d never be able to stop them now. I felt Lucas trying to pull me toward him, but I pushed his arms away and turned to face him. He deserved to look me in the face when I said this. “I said I’d use a knife if I had a choice. I’d cut him right down the middle, gut him like a fish, so I could see the evil lurking inside.”
I saw the look of recognition on Luca’s face as he recalled the phrase “gutted like a fish.” The papers hadn’t spared the details for the Wesleys’ sake. That exact phrase had been used in every article about the murder as though the gruesome nature of the crime would convince the world of something, as though describing every bloody detail had some purpose beyond torturing me. Though if it did, I could never figure out what it was.
Vaguely I heard Lucas saying something about how I’d been just a kid. Kids said all kinds of horrible things. I hadn’t really meant it. But I wasn’t listening. The rest of the story tumbled out of me in a monotone, as though I were reading from the script of a horror movie in which I was the star.
“The next afternoon I was getting Tommy ready to go to the playground when Brandon showed up at the back door with the knife in his hand. It was a switchblade, still folded closed. I remember wanting to hold it because I’d never seen one before and I wanted to see how it opened. I didn’t understand what was happening yet. He told Tommy he’d push him on the swings, which was enough to make the kid fall in love with him. Then he leaned in and said in my ear, ‘Today’s the day we take care of business,’ and I knew something wasn’t quite right.
“That’s when I should have grabbed Tommy and run. I should have screamed my head off. But I just couldn’t comprehend what he meant. Take care of what business? The murdering business? Ricky wasn’t even there that day—he was sleeping over at a friend’s house. I assumed Brandon was kidding and that we’d just take Tommy to the park and watch him play. I assumed it was a joke because he was my boyfriend and that meant he knew me. He knew I didn’t really want to kill Ricky, didn’t he?
“But then, when we reached the woods, Brandon started describing to me, step by step, how he was going to do it. He kept pointing at Tommy, who had run ahead of us. Because he thought Tommy was Ricky. He thought Tommy was the bratty one, the horrible one, the one I wanted dead. He whispered his plan into my ear, and it was exactly as I’d described it the night before. He was going to do it, just like I’d said. Just like I asked. He was going to do it for me.”
Lucas’s eyes were riveted to my face now, his shock evident, though he was trying to hide it. I was rewriting a story that had been told thousands of times, unraveling the mystery that had gripped a nation. The Kindergarten Killer never had a discernible motive. His entire defense had hinged upon that fact. And all the time I’d had the answer.
His motive was me.
Just as Brandon had led Tommy and I into the woods six years before, I followed him in now. I continued to recount the story to Lucas, while in my mind I lived it: the darkness of the trees descending around us; the clearing appearing ahead, divided by the long-unused train tracks; and the sky still bright with the dying day, the sky I could not escape, the sky he died under.
Is this really happening?
The question runs through my mind on a continual loop as we walk through the trees, looking for all the world like three kids with nothing to do on a Thursday afternoon. Three kids taking a shortcut to the park through the woods. Three innocent kids.
Except Brandon is whispering bloody things in my ear. And the voice in my head is rising to a scream. And one of us might soon be dead.
“Race you to the train tracks, Katie!” Tommy cries, because trains are his favourite things in the world, because he has no idea my boyfriend plans to butcher him.
I want to tell him to keep running, to run for his life, but I’m shaking with fear and the words stick in my throat.
“You heard him, Katie Kat,” Brandon says. “You’d better hurry now. If I get there first, who knows what might happen.” He’s only pretending to taunt me, posing his arms as though he’s about to start jogging ahead, but not actually going through with it. He thinks I’m on his side.
“I’m coming!” I call to Tommy, who shrieks as though he’s being chased even though I haven’t moved a muscle.
Then I turn to Brandon and my voice falls to a whisper. “This isn’t funny, okay? Pretending you’re going to kill a five year old isn’t funny.” Because this is a joke, it just has to be. Twelve-year-old boys don’t murder kindergarteners. Brandon isn’t a killer…is he?
“Who’s trying to be funny?” Brandon says, his voice flat, all the mirth from a moment ago completely gone.
“Just give me the knife and we can forget this ever happened,” I say reasonably. “I won’t even be mad.” I hold out a shaking hand.
“Mad about what?” Brandon replies. He seems genuinely confused. That’s when I know he isn’t joking or playing a trick. This isn’t a game to Brandon.
This is really happening.
In desperation I try to snatch the blade out of his hand, but he’s too quick. He shoves me away roughly and I nearly trip and fall.
“You’re not really going to do this,” I say frantically. “You know I was just joking around last night. You know I don’t really want you to kill anyone. He’s not even—”
“I heard what you said,” Brandon replies. “I heard it loud and clear. I’m going to take care of it for you. You’ll thank me when it’s done, trust me.”
“You’re right, that is what I said. I do want him dead,” I say, switching tacks. Maybe if he thinks I want this too, maybe if I convince him, maybe, maybe, maybe… “But this kid isn’t the one I hate. It’s his brother I want dead. You don’t want to kill the wrong kid, do you? You don’t want to make that mistake.”
He gives me a look of disgust. He thinks I’m lying, I can see it in his eyes.
“Having a change of heart?” he says. “Don’t worry, I’m not like you. I won’t lose my nerve. I never do.”
“Brandon, please—”
He takes my hand and twists it behind my back, pinning it painfully. I let out a gasp of shock and pain. When he speaks, his voice is hard. “Don’t even think of getting in my way. This is what you want. You’ve forgotten, but you’ll remember when it’s done. You’ll see how good it feels. When he’s dead, you’ll understand. You’ll love me for it.”
I can’t see him now because he’s standing behind me, but I can see his free hand as he flips open the knife. The knife he will use to kill Tommy, and probably me, too.
I begin to breathe quickly, too quickly, and the forest path tilts in front of me. I will myself not to pass out. Because if I do, what will happen to Tommy? I find out what it means to piss yourself with fear when I feel the warmth spreading over the crotch of my jeans.
“Say you love me,” Brandon says as he presses me forward, toward the clearing.
“I love you,” I gasp, because it’s what he wants to hear, because love conquers all, doesn’t it? Maybe love can conquer Brandon’s bloodlust. Maybe love can save us. “I love you, Brandon. I really do. I’ll do whatever you want. Just leave the kid alone. You can tie me up. You can cut me as much as you want.”
“Why would I want to cut you up?” Brandon says. He seems almost hurt by my words. “I love you. I’m doing this for you.”
I try to struggle against his grip, but he only yanks my arm harder, eliciting a small scream from my lips. “Keep quiet,” Brandon says immediately, clamping a hand over my mouth. “Don’t say a word, or I’ll kill him slowly.”
Hearing my scream, Tommy appears up ahead of us on the path and my eyes fill with tears. My voice has called him back when I wanted him to run.
“Katie, hurry up!” Tommy calls, then frowns as he takes in the scene of me and Brandon and his knife.
I want to beat Brandon to the ground, but I’m too weak. I want to go back to the minute before I told him about Ricky and still my lips, but I know I can’t. I want to whisk Tommy to safety, but I’m trapped. I’m useless. And it’s all my fault.
So I do the only thing I can think of. I bite down on Brandon’s hand hard, tasting blood. My eyes find Tommy again and I scream, “Run!”
Brandon swears and lets me out of his grip, shocked by the wound, and suddenly I’m running down the path after Tommy, who has disappeared from view. I don’t look back, though I can hear Brandon’s clumsy footsteps behind me. For five seconds I imagine that we might get out of this. As I reach the clearing, the trees open up to reveal the sky, full of fading light. I still have hope until the moment I see Tommy standing there, waiting for me, his eyes enormous with fright.
“No!” I cry as Brandon shoves me from behind and I fall forward, the metal railroad tie coming up to meet my eyes.
“Stupid bitch,” Brandon says.
The last thing I hear is Tommy’s scream.
Lucas held me in his arms, rocking me as my entire body was racked with sobs. The only word I said for a long while was “Tommy,” and each time I did he stroked my head and told me everything would be okay. But it didn’t feel okay. Reliving that moment felt almost exactly like Hell, and I didn’t want to be in Lucas’s arms now. I didn’t want to drag him down to Hell with me. But he wouldn’t let me go.
Eventually, once my tears had slowed to a trickle, Lucas loosened his hold, allowing me to pull away. Immediately I turned my back as I wiped at my face.
“Katie…” Lucas said, reaching for me, but I flinched at his touch.
“Don’t touch me,” I warned. “You don’t want to hold me. You don’t want to hold a killer.”
“You’re not a killer,” Lucas said steadily, and I snorted. “Brandon is the Kindergarten Killer, not you.”
I twisted around to face him, suddenly furious. “It was my idea!” I cried. “Tommy’s murder started in my head, not Brandon’s. Sure it was Ricky I wanted dead, not poor Tommy, but what’s the difference? Brandon cut him down the torso, just like I asked. Split him almost in half. You know, you read all about it. Everyone did. And he did it for me!”
“That doesn’t mean it was what you wanted,” Lucas protested. “That doesn’t mean you would have done it yourself. You were a pissed off kid and you said you wanted someone dead. That’s not the same as going through with it. Brandon is the murderer, Katie.”
“Yeah,” I said, “and I’m just the girl who drove him to it.”
He was about to retort, but instead Lucas’s face stilled as he took in my words. “Is that why you were so afraid when I knocked down Buck? You thought I’d turned into Brandon?”
“It’s what I’m good at,” I said bitterly. “I drive guys to madness, to violence. It’s my talent.”
Lucas sighed and took me by the shoulders, forcing me to face him. Reluctantly, I raised my eyes to meet his. “I know a little bit about the Kindergarten Killer,” he said. “I read every article about it when I was in high school. We even followed the case in class. The teacher thought it would be better than gossiping about it in the halls. Brandon’s father used to beat him with tools from his workshop. When they arrested him he had broken ribs from being beaten. He’d been killing animals in those woods for months, mutilating their bodies. Practicing. His teachers admitted they thought he was off. I think his mother said he tried to kill his little sister once. He was a killer long before he met you.”
“Fine, he’s the killer,” I conceded. “He murdered Tommy, not me. But it’s still my fault!” My tears were running again, blurring my vision.
“Tell me why,” Lucas said, tightening his grip on my shoulders as I tried to pull away.
“B-because,” I spluttered. “Because, I-I—”
“Because you were his babysitter? Because you once said you hated his brother so much you wanted to kill him and a psychopath decided it was a good idea?”
“Because if not for me, he’d still be alive.”
“That’s crazy logic, Katie,” Lucas said, his kind eyes boring into mine, trying to fill me with his compassion. But my heart was too full of self-loathing to let him in. “You didn’t want either Tommy or Ricky to die, not really. I know you, maybe better than anyone now. You’re not to blame.”
Reaching up swiftly, I yanked hard on Lucas’s arms, dislodging them from my shoulders, and shot to my feet. “You know me?” I said, angrily wiping at my wet cheeks. “Haven’t you been listening? Everything I’ve ever told you is a lie. I’m not the shy artist who likes brownies and rescues kittens. I’m a liar and a phony. I’m a fugitive. I lied to the police and I lied in court. I belong in jail!”
I began twisting my fingers, falling into that same old habit. I remembered then the reason I’d started doing it in the first place. In the ambulance, after Tommy died, I’d twisted my fingers just like this, trying to get the blood off. I imagined I could still see it there even months later, even after a hundred washings. Tommy’s blood would always be on my hands.
“You were just trying to protect yourself,” Lucas went on in that same sympathetic tone, and suddenly I wanted to hit him. “You were thirteen. Do you know how many lies I told when I was thirteen?”
I’m guessing you weren’t under oath at the time,” I said. “I’m guessing you drew a line somewhere. You’d lie to your mom, but not your best friend. You’d lie about getting detention, but not about stabbing someone to death. Do you know how many lies I’ve told, who I’ve lied to? I’ll tell you who: everyone. I lied to the press about that day. To my friends. To my parents. To my sister. To you. I’ve been lying so long I don’t even recognize the truth anymore. Is that the kind of person you want to be with? A pathological liar who’ll say anything to save her skin?”
“Would it have made that much difference if you’d told the truth?” Lucas countered. “Being a liar isn’t the same as being a killer.”
“I claimed I didn’t even know Brandon,” I spat. “I said I’d never seen him before in my life, and they all believed me because I was the sweet girl from the nice family and he was trash. I washed my hands of Tommy’s death and let Brandon take the fall.” My head began to pound and I gripped it with my hands.
“You didn’t let him take the fall. He’s the one who committed the crime. He got what he deserved,” Lucas said.
“I was a coward,” I whispered between my fingers.
“Oh, Hero,” Lucas said, getting to his feet and moving toward me.
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, my face contorted with fury at the sound of the word. “Don’t ever call me that again.”
Turning away, my arms wrapped around my stomach, I felt the warmth of Lucas’s body behind me before he put his arms around me. I wanted to struggle away, but I was just too tired. Tired of trying to make him see the truth. Tired of thinking about that day. Tired of trying to push him away.
In that moment, all I wanted to do was sink into his warmth and forget.
“You’ll always be my hero, Katie,” Lucas said as he fitted my body against his like a puzzle piece clicking into place, his lips against my hair. “You’re the girl who saved me from the darkness of grief, and from a panic attack, and from a lifetime of meaningless hookups. You made me feel something amazing when I thought I’d never feel anything good again. You might not have been able to save Tommy, but you saved me. You made me love you.”
I felt him turning me around to face him and let him do it. Within the cocoon of his arms, I pressed my hands to his chest as he pressed his forehead against mine.
“I love you, Katie,” he repeated.
I looked up at him, shaking my head. “But how?” I asked, my lips trembling.
“Like this,” he said, pressing his lips gently to mine.
I wanted to melt into his kiss, but my reeling mind wouldn’t let me. I knew this couldn’t be real. When tomorrow came, when he’d had a chance to think about it, he would change his mind. He would see that I wasn’t worthy of love, not after what I’d done. He would see that being with me would change him into a monster, just like Brandon. He would see the truth.
“Stop doubting me, Katie,” Lucas said, cupping my cheeks. “I know what I’m saying.”
I closed my eyes, an entire lifetime of wanting drawing me toward him. He lifted me off my feet, settling my legs around his waist, wrapping me around him. “But what if—” I said, but he pressed a kiss to my lips again to silence me.
He sat down on the bed without letting go of me. “Nothing you’ve done or will do could ever make me stop loving you,” he said. “Nothing you say about yourself will ever convince me that you aren’t the incredible girl I’ve known for the past two months. I’m not going to change my mind about this. You’re stuck with me, so you’d better get used to it.”
I rested my cheek against his chest, so overwhelmed with emotion, love for Lucas and hatred for myself swirling inside me, mixed with fear and hope, despair and gladness, sorrow and joy. Could a single person really feel so many things at once? I guessed so, because I was.
Lucas ran his hands up and down my back. He said, “Promise me you’ll try to believe me.”
“I need you to promise me something first,” I said, drawing away so I could look him in the face.
“Anything,” he said.
“When you change your mind, I need you to tell me right away,” I said.
He brushed a piece of hair behind my ear. “I’m not going to change my mind,” he said.
“Then it’s an easy promise to make,” I answered. I really needed this. I didn’t want to be the fool who went on thinking he loved me when he didn’t. And I knew the day would come when he didn’t, and soon.
“Fine,” Lucas said. “If you’ll promise to let me love you, I’ll promise to let you know when that love ends.”
I nodded numbly.
“Even though it never will,” Lucas finished, kissing my cheek. “Because I plan on loving you for the rest of my life, Katie Archer.”
You don’t know what you’re saying, I thought. You don’t know who I really am.
But as his lips met mine again and I surrendered to his embrace, I heard a new voice inside my head, a jubilant voice that had something very different to say.
You know me. You know me. You know me. You know me. You know me, the voice said, and for the moment, I let myself believe it.
Locked in Lucas’s arms, my chin on his shoulder, my legs and arms around him just as his arms were around me, I told him the rest of my story. As I spoke, I felt little pieces of the pain I’d been wearing like a cloak falling away. I wondered if when I was done telling I’d be able to take the cloak off, or maybe it would have disappeared all on its own. I hoped so.
The story that started after that day in the woods was even longer than what came before. I told Lucas about waking up covered in my own blood from my head wound and then stumbling over something in the dark, the horror of touching the pulpy flesh and realizing it was what was left of Tommy. Then there were my screams ping-ponging around inside my head and the wild run through the woods and being found by the lady walking her dog—the look on her face when she saw me covered in blood—the discovery of Tommy’s body and the lies I told the police, and my parents, and Emily—oh God, Emily. I had a concussion and a broken arm and had to stay in the hospital overnight as the horror of Tommy Wesley’s death played out on the TV attached to the wall. My statement is what led to Brandon’s arrest, the first arrest of a twelve-year-old boy for murder the province had ever seen.
Then there was the media hounding my family every time we left the house, and the wrenching guilt as friends and neighbours poured out their sympathy, encircling me with a concern and affection I felt I did not deserve. Tommy’s funeral, which I attended under protest. A school year done and a summer of living under self-imposed house arrest. Then a new year began and I had to face high school as this new, darker version of myself, to withstand the looks that followed me everywhere I went. But they weren’t looks of accusation, only pity, only disgust at the mess I’d made of myself.
A year passed before the trial began and I had to relive that day in the woods all over again. Brandon’s lawyer tried to pin the murder on me, but I was too good of a liar by then. Too practiced. Too sympathetic. Brandon eyed me with silent hatred whenever I was in the courtroom, and I kept my gaze lowered, destroying my hands, praying I would get away with it. In the end he got the maximum sentence possible in youth court: six years in custody and four years’ community supervision. The papers railed against the fact that he couldn’t be tried as an adult, but he was too young, He was only twelve. Ten years was the best they could do. By the time he turned eighteen he would be back out in the world. I prayed that day would never come, that something terrible would happen to him in that place. Because I knew he would come for me when he got out and I would have to answer for my lies.
“But the day did come,” I said. “It was that day I called you over to help me watch Ethan.”
Lucas leaned his cheek against mine. “I remember reading the headlines. If only I’d known… Your freak-out over Ethan makes a lot more sense now.”
“He’s the same age Tommy was,” I said sadly. Though Ethan would grow older, Tommy would always be five years old. Tommy would never grow up.
Because of me, I thought, then corrected myself. No, Katie, because of Brandon.
I described my need to escape the Vancouver suburb, my home, which had, over six years, become a stifling prison. I needed to be somewhere no one knew I’d been a victim of the Kindergarten Killer. So I’d applied to art programs out east and picked Queen’s on a whim, moving across the country with my sister in tow to escape my past.
“Except it caught up with me,” I said.
Then came the hardest part: telling Lucas the whole truth of Brandon’s assault on me over the last two months, from the first Facebook message to the texts he’d already read to the break-in. Though it pained and frightened me to see his anger, I had to let him pace and rage as I recounted the worst of it. I had to let him express his frustration, his desire to rip Brandon apart, and believe he never would. It was almost harder than telling him about the murder itself. Watching Lucas’s muscular arms ripple with tension brought out a terror in me that was all too familiar.
He’s not Brandon, I reminded myself. Lucas is on my side.
But this truth was harder to swallow, because hadn’t Brandon been on my side, too?
When I told Lucas about the crumpled message in my bag and explained that he must have been in the coffee shop with us, his face went blank—with anger or fear, I couldn’t be sure—and he was silent for a long time. We sat together in this quiet, leaning on each other, holding each other. Even though he didn’t say a word, those moments of silence meant so much to me—almost more than any profession of love. I’d been sitting in the dark for so long. I’d never realized how much I’d been yearning for someone to sit there with me and hold my hand and let me feel his heart beating insistently under my palm, telling me I wasn’t in this alone.
“I won’t let him hurt you,” Lucas mumbled into my neck as we lay down together on his bed. “I’ll stay with you always. He won’t be able to find you behind me.”
He put his arms around me protectively, holding me tightly even as he drifted off to sleep. There was comfort there, but also dismay. Lucas thought he could hide me from Brandon, but I knew the truth.
Eventually he would find me.