“No. Absolutely not. You told me. You promised.”
“And I’ll keep that promise. But Becky, if we do this right, it will never come out. The threat will be enough.”
“And what about his threat to me? And my family? And if you’re going to tell me next that you’ll protect us, please, just spare me. I wouldn’t believe you now anyway.”
There was a long pause. The request had been just the opening, and Livia hadn’t expected it to be decisive. Now she had to close.
“Becky. Ophelia did everything she could to protect you. She died trying to protect you.” She paused, then went on. “You can keep faith now with what Ophelia did. With who she was. You can protect someone, too. My sister. Nason. Please.”
MacKinnon shook her head. “No. I told you, no.”
But Livia knew what it felt like when a suspect’s defenses were wavering. It felt like what she was seeing now in MacKinnon’s face, and hearing in her tone.
“She protected you,” Livia said. “And you can never pay that back. But wouldn’t she want you to pay it forward? By protecting someone else?”
“I am protecting someone else. My family.”
“Ezra is your brother. He’s not the bogeyman. And you’re not that little girl anymore. You’re strong. You’re a survivor. Don’t let him control you with fear. Stand up to him, Becky. The way Ophelia did.”
As it had before, MacKinnon’s expression wavered between fear and determination. Then it dissolved and she started crying again. “He killed her.”
“Yes. And you had no choice but to let him get away with it. But now you do have a choice. You have a weapon. Me. Use it.”
That was it. There was nothing more to say. There was nothing to do but wait.
A minute went by. Then another.
Finally, MacKinnon said, “If your sister is alive, and Ezra tells you where she is, you’ll be able to help her.”
“Yes.”
“And if she’s . . . not alive . . .”
“Then I’ll deal with that.”
MacKinnon nodded. “But you don’t want a scandal any more than I do.”
“That’s right.”
“You want to threaten him with exposure. And if the threat works, then you don’t actually need to expose him. It’s something like . . . you’re pointing a gun at him. And if he complies, you don’t actually need to fire.”
“Yes. That’s exactly what it’s like.”
“But then we’ll have protected your sister. Or at least found out what happened to her. But we won’t have done anything to protect the other girls my brother has victimized. The victims yet to come.”
For the second time that afternoon, Livia felt she’d been hit by a judo throw she hadn’t seen coming.
“So,” MacKinnon continued. “What are we going to do to protect them?”
Livia said nothing.
“I’ll help you,” MacKinnon said. “You can tell my brother we’re working together. Tell him we’ll both testify, go to the media, whatever. And if he thinks you’re exaggerating, or bluffing, or making the whole thing up, and he calls me, I swear to you I will back up everything you say.”
Livia said nothing.
“But in exchange for that, you can’t leave him to hurt anyone else the way he and Fred hurt us. You can’t.”
Despite herself, Livia was impressed. She had created so many boxes for suspects in the interrogation room. It was disconcerting to experience one from the suspect’s perspective.
Not that it mattered. She had already known she wasn’t going to just walk away after bracing Lone. If she’d been forced to choose between finding out about Nason and letting Lone live, there was no question she would have chosen the former. But she didn’t expect to have to make that choice. She would squeeze everything possible out of him. And as soon as she was convinced he had nothing more to offer, she would leave him, the way she had left his sick brother. The way she had left Weed Tyler.
But she hadn’t exactly planned on discussing any of this with MacKinnon, either. She realized again her moves were off. She wasn’t as in control as she usually was, she wasn’t as aware of what was happening at the periphery of the game. The Lone girls’ tragedy . . . it was just too close to hers and Nason’s.
All that said, she wasn’t worried the woman would be any kind of risk. MacKinnon was too motivated to keep her secrets. Protect her family. Continue to live the life she had painstakingly created for herself. Beyond which, of course, she wanted her brother dead. It was about the last thing she would object to, or go to the police about.
“It isn’t fair,” MacKinnon said. “They victimize us in secret, and then the only way we’re allowed to fight back is to be raped again in public? By scandalmongers, by the tabloid press, by gawkers rubbernecking at every disgusting detail of what they did to us against our will?”
Livia sighed. The woman had great instincts. But she hadn’t yet learned not to sell past the close.
MacKinnon held out her hand. “Do we have an understanding?”
Livia hesitated. Then reached out.