Deja Who (Insighter #1)(66)

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door.

“Tom.”

“She said she had changed your mind about Mother Daughter Hookers Heroes. She said you were on board and we’d all go back to Hollywood and it’d be the way it was when you were—when you didn’t hate us. She said that. To me.”

“Tom.”

“But you made it clear, that last call. I figured it out, then. How she tricked me; I forgot how good she is at tricking people. Me, an agent, and her, an actress! The worst kind, the desperate kind. That goes for both of us,” he added.

“Tom!”

“You said you were done with her at the house but I thought maybe . . . maybe you weren’t—well, all right, I knew you were serious but I hoped you’d change your mind. We knew how much you hated Insighting. Knew you’d turn your back on it if you could. But you didn’t.”

“Didn’t hate Insighting? Or didn’t turn my back?” She was having trouble following him. Tom seemed weepy and distracted, even more so than usual.

“You didn’t change your mind,” he elaborated. “And I knew. I remembered what she always made herself forget, how stubborn you are, how unmoving. So there was no point, you get it? When you wouldn’t just do the show, you wouldn’t be with her anymore for any reason. No point to stay in her life. I wasn’t ever supposed to be in her life anyway.”

“No?”

“I did it wrong this time; I got in her life when you were young. I had to. You see it, right?”

“Maybe talk me through it.” She realized she was using her clinical voice, and no wonder. This could be a session like any other session, with one crucial difference: she wasn’t bored. She sent a silent apology to all her patients. Should have been nicer, should have seen you weren’t pieces of paper in a chart. I’m paying for it now, if that makes it better.

“The only way I could be in your life is if I was in hers. I wanted to be near you for a long time, I didn’t want to make you go away, because then I don’t have you until the next time.” This in a tone people used for “two plus two equals four; it’s so easy, isn’t it?”

“A dilemma,” she agreed, sounding like she was speaking through a mouthful of sawdust. My kingdom for a glass of water. And a shotgun.

“But I didn’t count on the stubbornness. Yours or hers. By the time I realized I was hiding too well you’d left and built your own life somewhere else. But she was always sure she could talk you into coming back. And I—I let myself believe it, because it was what I wanted, too. I believed it because she believed it.”

“Yes, my mother could take a polygraph and the needles would never twitch,” Leah managed, her thoughts whirling. “It’s why she was such a good actress. She was always acting. Even Nellie Nazir was a role.”

He took a step forward. He was three feet away, between her and the door. No other exit. Phone still charging in the other room. She could stand there and shriek, but the door had locked when it closed. No one would get there in time. And she was a fool. It seemed she was always a fool.

Tom’s tears weren’t for Nellie. They weren’t even for her. They were for himself, only for himself. Never thought I’d say this, Mother: you deserved better.

“Is that why you beat her to death?” She couldn’t believe how detached she sounded, attentive yet slightly bored. Ho-hum, just another day in the salt mines. “Because I refused to do the show?”

“No. Because she told me she knew how to get you to Hollywood. To get you back. She was so proud for thinking of it. So she made me wait there in the photo room, the shrine to your careers—”

“I honestly would rather hear about my mother’s murder instead of the photo room, and I don’t want to hear about my mother’s murder,” she admitted.

“I heard her lie. She said you had a deal and I was on my way to L.A.”

“She gave you an alibi.” Christ. How awful and disturbing and wrong. She pictured Nellie on the phone, winking at Tom while purring in her lovely voice at Leah, unwittingly giving her killer an alibi. Not a great alibi, but one that would buy him enough time. Time to do . . . this. Which was all he was living for anyway.

She would have known. At the end. Realized what he would do in a day or two or a week or two. Remembered how I predicted my murder when I was five. Remembered dismissing it, ignoring it, all those years. Put herself in his way. She was ready for him to ruin her face, destroy her beauty. He never touched her face but she couldn’t have known. She put what she loved the most on the line to save what she loved the least and oh Mother I am SO SORRY.

“You pathetic piece of shit.” Her voice sounded so distant to her ears, distant and distasteful. Like hearing about a nasty story in the news but not feeling how awful it was. “You ridiculous awful man.” She was once again surprised yet not surprised at how evil could look like a frail sniffling man huddled in a cheap coat.

“She lied,” he whined. He was still closing the distance, inching toward her. She was still letting him. “The lies kept us apart all those years. It’s her fault, all that wasted time. And his fault.”

“His?”

“Your idiot boy, the one you’ve taken up with.”

“First, he took up with me. Second he’s not my anything, third he’s not an idiot, and fourth, I’ve had boyfriends before now, what’s so special about Archer?” Dumbest question ever. Everything about him was special. His smile, his eyes, his laugh, his toenails, his morning breath.