I check for Dorotea. The coast is clear. I cock my head. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a little prick?”
“Am one? Yes. Have one? No. Would you like to see the evidence?” He pulls a lever and his seat flies backward, his socked feet under my nose. I make a face at the tang and back away.
“Here’s the thing,” he says. “If the Latina in the woods can be connected to the same perv who attacked you and your buddy, the police are screwed. The parole board chief and maybe the detective in charge of the case will get axed. Blowing open a story like that with actual consequences? That makes you valuable. Rel-e-vant. Uncannable, even. At least for a while longer.”
I swipe the clicker and shut off the TV. “You are a rotten little punk.”
He extracts a different remote from the crease in his seat and flicks on the TV. “Problem is, she’s getting shut out. Everyone in this sleepy town is pissed at her for crucifying the good guys. That’s not to say they don’t feel sorry for you. And beyond Shiverton, who cares if the lazy cops go down? But this is a local story, and Paula needs her local sources. The common folk. They figure, the perv is dead. Let sleeping dogs lie. The cops know better now, so they’ll be more careful about where their sickos wander. Even Tufts has a no-Paula policy, now that she’s suggesting their vet student had some, shall we say, sketchy leanings.”
“How do you even know all this? You’re just a disrespectful, spoiled private school kid.”
“You hit the nail on the head, Julie. I need to keep tabs on the money flow. Don’t think I’m not fully aware that if my mother loses her job I don’t get to stay at Governor’s Academy. Tuition is thirty-eight thousand. That’s one year at a subpar college. I say a prayer of gratitude every day that you got away from that twiddler in the woods and lived to tell about it.” He straps on virtual reality headgear, goggles that look like the ones Donald Jessup wore in the woods. I recognize the opening sequence of Prey, a garden of Eden unfolding in technicolor, then the scene grows dark, the music ominous. Hudson chooses weapons for his character, a hunter in fatigues with outsized muscles and a crew cut.
I force myself to look away from the screen. “Don’t think I won’t tell your mother everything you said about her.”
He tilts his controller and jams his thumbs into the buttons. “And who do you think she’s going to believe? You might be important, but I’m all she has in this world. The only thing she and my dad share these days is an initial.” His avatar gets sliced in half by a centaur bearing a samurai sword. He swears, shoving his goggles to the top of his head and fixing cold eyes on me. “Oh, and if you think I must be stupid because it’s not in my interests to tell you the truth about Paula, you’re wrong. It’s just a hunch, but given what I know about human nature, I’m pretty sure you’re more interested in revenge on those incompetent cops than in the fact that Paula might be using you.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re a sad, lonely kid who feels neglected by his mother and sees every person related to her career as a threat that you must take down.” I storm away, stopping in the kitchen to leave my Coke on the counter and thank Dorotea, who jumps away from the TV and hides her head in the dishwasher. Niggled that my sign-off feels lame, I fly back to the media room. Hudson torques his shoulders right to left. I yank his goggles off, giving his ears a good hard tug along with them.
“Ouch!”
“Just wanted to point out that it’s easier to win at Prey when you have opposable thumbs.”
“Touché, be-atch!” He pulls his goggles back down and gets back in the game. “By the way, I lied. My mother’s in the study, taking calls.”
“You—she’s been here the whole time?”
“I just wanted us to have a chance to talk. We’re done now. Goodbye.” He waves me away without looking.