Real Bad Things(95)
“I won’t.” Georgia Lee squeezed in return. “Not ever. Just promise me you’ll be careful. You don’t know what you’re walking into.”
Jane’s stomach sank at the thought. It was one thing for Georgia Lee to have killed Warren, a knowable rage and response. But for Jason to have also confessed after lying to Diane for so long—a whole other level of unknown.
Jane took a deep breath and expelled it through her nose. She eased the car door shut and inched her way toward the trailer. Despite Georgia Lee’s predictions, no one surrounded the trailer. Not the neighbors, not the cops. Everything was eerily quiet. She blamed it on the time of morning or the day, even though she didn’t really know what day it was. Maybe everyone was off to work, not paying attention to social media. And the trailer park didn’t get going till about noon.
Walking up the stairs, she glanced at the trailer next door. Yellowed scraps from the Maud Register still covered the windows. Somehow, she’d stepped in and out of Diane’s trailer for weeks and hadn’t noticed until now. Part of her felt relieved to know that whoever lived there might call for help if they heard something today like Jane suspected they’d done all those years ago. But those calls never did anything but create more trouble.
Unlike the last time she’d opened the door, she didn’t hesitate. She rushed right in. Only after did she realize she should’ve brought some sort of weapon.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jason gasped, looking like he could jump out of his skin.
After collecting herself from her own shock, Jane said, “Of course you’re here. Mommy’s little boy.” Golden Boy, Angie had called him, and she was right. So right. And Jane was part of the problem.
He held a bottle of whiskey, which was odd. According to Diane, he never came over. Now, after confessing to killing her husband, they’d become drinking buddies?
As if coming out of a waking dream, he reanimated. Smiled that speaking-to-a-difficult-client smile. “I didn’t expect to see you.” And then, oddly, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Yeah? Well, neither should you. But here we are.” All the worry and anger and confusion at his silence stewed inside her, tunneling her vision onto her target. “What the fuck, Jason?”
“Calm down.” He held out his hands in surrender. “I can imagine what this must feel like for you.”
“I fucking doubt it. I’ve been texting you for days. Don’t you get a phone call or something in jail? Why didn’t you call me?”
“I called my lawyer.” Fine. Appropriate. The right thing to do. But Jesus, she was pretty sure he got more than one phone call.
“Did it ever occur to you that I might be curious as to what you had planned? How it might affect me personally? That I might be, I don’t know, interested in the idea of not going to prison?” They had a brief eye-contact standoff. “Why didn’t you tell me that Diane helped you that night?”
He didn’t have an answer for that, just a hangdog offering on his face.
“What I don’t know is why you’ve been avoiding me. The only reason I can come up with is you feel bad about letting me take the blame. And I don’t get why you thought it necessary to confess when Georgia Lee was guilty. Unless you couldn’t bear the thought of letting Georgia Lee tell everyone what really happened that night because it’d make you look weak, which doesn’t exactly square with the image you’ve crafted for yourself.”
He gave her an Angie Pham special: that look of utter exasperation at her dramatics. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you more for lying to me. And to Diane. And for having her help you clean up the mess. And for letting her treat me like shit. And you, for treating me like shit too.” Her eyes grew glossy despite her desire to stay calm. “I just wanted to protect you, and that’s what I get in return.”
“I didn’t need your protection.”
“You sure? You seemed pretty in need of saving that night.”
After a moment, he adjusted his shirt. “Just because I didn’t react the way you did doesn’t mean I didn’t know how to take care of myself. You don’t always have to push or shout. Jesus.” He looked away, maybe to calm himself. “You’ve got some fucked-up version of the past. Like I was always in the corner in the fetal position and you had to come to my rescue. I never needed you to protect me. I protected myself.”
They stared at each other for a moment before both dropped their eyes.
“Why are you even here?” The tone, his face—both dripped with condescension. As if she were the one who needed help.
He’d never tell her the truth. She looked around the room. “I need to grab my shit.”
“I can get that for you,” Jason said and bounded after her. Just like Diane had.
“I can get it my goddamn self.”
Jane found her laptop on the end table where she’d left it. Miracle it hadn’t been thrown at the wall. Bigger miracle would be if it still worked. She pulled the power cord and her phone cord and assorted other cords into a plastic bag she’d found in a cabinet. Jason stayed close behind her.
“Why are you following me like you’re with the DEA?”
She shoved past him. Only then did she notice Diane sleeping on the couch, turned away from the TV and toward the back of the couch. The blankets and pillows Jane had used covering her and under her head.