The Accomplice(84)

The drive felt longer than two hours. The Denver mountains still had snow on their peaks, but they weren’t driving in an especially pretty part of the state. The landscape grew increasingly barren. Murdoch kept giving Luna their ETA. Just another hour. Thirty minutes out. Almost there. Luna saw the sign for Sterling Correctional Facility, a cement box wrapped with barbed wire. Murdoch flashed his badge at the security checkpoint and pulled his car into the visitor parking lot. Luna watched the agent lock his gun in a small safe located in the trunk of his car.

Murdoch had his hand on Luna’s shoulder as they walked down the stark hallway to the meeting room. Luna was suddenly thirsty. The fluorescent lights were so bright that Luna wished she could wear sunglasses. She hadn’t had a seizure in a few years, but the conditions were ripe for one. A man in an orange jumpsuit was chained to a metal table. It took her a moment to realize it was John. Back when they’d lived under the same roof, when she thought she knew him, Brown was trim and handsome, in a way. Like a secondary character in a Western. The man before her had maybe thirty more pounds of muscle and another twenty of soft gut, not to mention the monk’s pattern baldness.

John Brown grinned toothy and wide when Luna walked into the room. “Look at you, Taco, all grown up,” he said.

Luna thought she was in the wrong room at first. Why was this big man calling her Taco? Her brain had worked overtime to erase him from her memory, but Taco did ring a distant bell. Then she recalled a night when she was a little girl. Maybe seven or eight. John was tucking her into bed and he’d wrapped a quilt around her, said she reminded him of a taco. He called her that maybe once or twice. She felt like he was using the nickname now for show, trying to trick Luna into thinking they’d had their own secret language.

Brown maintained his Cheshire Cat grin, waiting for Luna to join in on the happy reunion. Murdoch was impressed with the young lady’s implacable demeanor. Agent Murdoch and Luna had talked about how she could best manage the situation. Don’t be afraid—we’re with you—but even if you are, try not to show it. If you’re not sure what to say, take a moment, think. There’s no rush. If you need a break, ask for a break. He also told her she didn’t have to appease Brown.

“Remember,” Murdoch had said, “John needs you there, nice or not. He will do whatever he has to, say whatever he can, to keep you in that room and not have to go back to his cell.”

Luna checked the clock. She and Murdoch had agreed on limiting catch-up to ten minutes. John had many questions for Luna, most of which were off-limits. She would not reveal any specific details of her life. John asked if she was in college. Luna said she was, back East. Where? John asked. Nope, Murdoch said, staring the prisoner down.

“I heard you got a new name,” John said. “Grey. Not very original, is it?”

He shouldn’t have had that information. Murdoch considered ending the interview right there. It was possible that John Brown was bluffing, that there were no more bodies and he was just trying to do as much damage as he could from inside.

“Were there others?” Luna asked.

John ignored her question. The meeting was going to move according to his own pace. Agent Murdoch reminded John Brown that there was a clock on the reunion. He had forty-five more minutes, and then Luna was gone. There were other incentives—a different prison, his own cell, that kind of thing—but additional face time with Luna was off the table.

John Brown reminisced about a trip to the county fair where he’d let Luna eat three voluminous clouds of cotton candy. Then he held her hair while she puked pink until her guts were empty.

“Prettiest vomit I ever saw,” Brown said, chuckling, trying to get Luna to join in on the laughter.

When she didn’t laugh, his expression soured.

“You’re not as fun as you used to be.”

“Maybe your expectations for this reunion were unrealistic,” Luna said.

Brown ignored the comment and began to reminisce about old pets. Bruno the cocker spaniel, Cleo the cat. “Did Bee ever meet an animal she didn’t fall in love with?”

“Who’s Bee?” Murdoch asked.

“My mother,” Luna said.

“How is she?” Brown asked.

“Fine.”

“What does that mean, ‘fine’?” Brown said.

“It means I’m not going to tell you anything about her,” Luna said.

“Remember that snake-squirrel she brought home? What was its name? Hermes? Something like that.”

“Don’t remember that,” Luna said.

Her mother didn’t get ferrets until their move to Canada, as far as Luna recalled.

“You don’t remember that ferret?” Brown said.

“I don’t.”

“You couldn’t breathe, Taco. We had to take you to the hospital.”

Luna had a foggy recollection of a hospital corridor, the raspy sound of her own breath, fighting for air.

“Vaguely,” Luna said. “I remember a stray cat causing that asthma attack.”

“Trust me,” Brown said. “It was Hermes, that filthy fucker. God, that thing stank.”

“I don’t remember,” Luna said.

“It was my first,” John said. “I did it for you. Then I found I had an aptitude for it.”

It took Luna a moment to understand what he was saying. Her throat felt dry. Too dry to speak. She wanted to ask for water, but she worried that Brown would see weakness in that. He already had too much power, having just carved a new memory into her brain.