All the Dangerous Things(58)

“Keep it,” I had said. “I have my own copy.”

Apparently, so did he.

“Why does he have this?” I whisper, feeling the worn paper between my fingers. Why would he have his own copy? I suppose it’s not impossible—journalists can always get their hands on these things—but why wouldn’t he tell me? Why would he pretend?

I think back to that first recorded conversation again—how I had repeated myself, telling him things he already knew, and the way he had been so convincing. Asking the exact same questions with feigned curiosity; nodding his head, eyebrows bunched, like he didn’t already know the answers I was about to repeat.

He’s a good liar, just like me.

I close the folder and stuff it back into his briefcase, placing it on the floor in the same spot as before. Then I pick up the headphones and place them snug over my ears. I can hear my heartbeat pounding loudly, my breath heavy and hoarse. I look down at the stereo and press Play, starting whatever recording he was just listening to in the exact spot where he left it.

“That seems hard for me to fathom.”

I feel a punch in my gut—I know that voice. It’s Detective Dozier, and already, I know whose voice I’m going to hear next.

“Well, it’s the truth.”

It’s mine.

This isn’t my conversation with Waylon. He isn’t editing anything we’ve worked on together. This is an interview recording from the police station. This is one of the early ones; one of the very first when they had separated Ben and me.

When I had been questioned—no, interrogated—alone.

“All right, let’s go over this one more time.” Dozier’s voice leaks through the speakers and into my ears, sending a familiar chill down my spine. I can still picture his eyes—those eyes that were so calloused and hard. So disbelieving. I can still see the way he was leaning against the table between us, drumming his fingers across the wood in a calm, steady rhythm. Like he had all the time in the world. “You woke up at six o’clock.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And you didn’t think to check on your son until after eight?”

“I … I thought he was still sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb him.”

“Does he always sleep until eight?”

“No … no, usually he wakes up earlier.”

I flinch at the sound of my own voice. I can hear it shaking, a little tremble in my throat.

“What time does he usually wake up?”

“Around six thirty.”

“And you didn’t think it was strange that you didn’t hear a peep from his room at all? Almost two hours after he’s normally up?”

“I was just hoping, I guess, that maybe he was sleeping in.”

“And why were you hoping he was sleeping in?”

“Um, well, he can be fussy sometimes, so I was hoping … I guess I wanted to take advantage of—”

“I’m sorry, did you just say you wanted to ‘take advantage of’ the fact that your son seemed to not be waking up?”

“No, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that … I just meant—”

I rip the headphones off and place them on the table, pushing my head into my hands. Goddamnit. I knew those interviews had been bad, but now, listening to them back, they’re even worse than I remembered. I can still feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, the fear making my fingers shake like a junkie during withdrawal.

Detective Dozier’s eyes drilling into mine, trying to pierce me so deeply that I would finally crack.

I try to piece together what this all means—Waylon having a copy of the case file already; listening to these recordings of Dozier grilling me, hard. Logically, I know this could all be research for the podcast. It seems unusual that he would hide it from me, but at the same time, this is his job.

Either way, it’s not incriminating enough to approach him with. I need something more.

I look at his laptop next, glancing back to his closed bedroom door, then down to the keyboard, tapping Return. It isn’t password protected, miraculously—maybe he was just on it, and it hasn’t been asleep long enough to lock—and I watch as the screen and keys illuminate in the dark. My heart thumps hard in my chest as I start moving my fingers across the track pad, navigating first to his desktop. There are various folders organized alphabetically: Finance, Interviews, Personal, Research. I don’t have time to scour his entire computer—he could walk into the hallway at any second and catch me here, snooping through his files—so I click on Research first.

After all, it seems like Waylon has certainly done his research.

I find various subfolders inside, each one labeled by episode and season. My eyes skim across every one until I reach the bottom of the list—to the very last folder, simply labeled X.

I click on the X folder, my eyes bulging when I see what’s inside. There are pictures of me—dozens of pictures—in various stages of life. There’s my headshot from The Grit and a wedding photo of Ben and me; our first family picture, with Mason between us, and even a few selfies of us I had posted to Facebook years ago. At the very bottom, my eyes linger on a candid of Ben and me at a bar; it was taken from across the room, the two of us caught in an intimate moment together, leaning in close. Unaware.