The Inmate (66)

“I know—he looks a lot like you.”

“Not just that.” He casts a glance over his shoulder. “There’s something about him. His personality. He just… it makes me think of what I used to be like at that age.”

I don’t want to disagree with Shane, but internally, I am shaking my head. Josh is not like Shane. I didn’t know Shane that well before we started dating, but everyone knew Shane Nelson was wild. Josh isn’t that way at all. He’s shy and sweet and has never once started trouble at school.

“Why don’t you go play Nintendo with him?” I suggest.

Shane’s eyes light up. “Yeah?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“I used to play at friends’ houses when I was a kid…” Of course, the Nelsons could not afford Nintendo. They could barely afford to keep the lights on. “You think he would want me to?”

“He definitely would.”

I finish making the Ritz crackers snack myself while Shane goes into the living room to join Josh. I can just barely see them, and I can’t hear anything they’re saying, but it looks like it’s going well. Shane leans over Josh, talking to him. Then he settles down on the couch next to him.

After ten years, Josh is finally spending time with his father. I can’t wait to tell him the truth.





Chapter 46


While Shane and Josh are playing Nintendo, my phone rings with a number I don’t recognize.

When Tim was first arrested, I learned not to answer the phone if I didn’t recognize the number. Mostly, it was reporters on the other line, desperate for a firsthand account of my experience both eleven years ago and over the last few months. They offered me mind-boggling amounts of cash to tell my story, but I always refused. It’s bad enough I’ll have to testify at Tim’s trial—I have no desire to relive it with a reporter and then see my story smeared all over the news and the internet. Not to mention it would increase the chances of Josh finding out the truth.

And then there were the haters who used to call me. People who were furious with me for sending an innocent man to jail. For falling in love with a man who turned out to be a killer. I had to change my email address because my inbox was flooded every day with angry messages and even threats. I changed my phone number too, but it didn’t help. If someone truly wants to reach you, there’s always a way.

But it’s been long enough. There have been like a hundred other news stories since Tim’s arrest, and the public has a short memory. Reporters aren’t interested in my story anymore. I’m yesterday’s news, and that’s the way I prefer it.

So it’s safe to answer the phone.

I click the green button to accept the call as I settle down at the kitchen table. “Hello?”

“Brooke?”

It’s a woman’s voice. She sounds older, about the same age my mother would have been, but I don’t recognize her.

“Yes…” I say.

“Brooke, this is Barbara Reese.”

I cringe, wishing I hadn’t taken the call. Barbara Reese left several messages on my voicemail way back when Tim was first arrested, but I never returned any of them. She was desperate to talk to me, which isn’t surprising, considering I’ll be testifying against her only son at his trial. And that’s all the more reason I can’t talk to her.

“Mrs. Reese,” I begin, “I can’t—”

“Please don’t hang up, Brooke.” Her voice breaks on the words. As hard as the last couple of months have been on me, I’m sure they were even worse for her. “Please. I need to talk to you.”

I want to hang up the phone, but I can’t do it to Mrs. Reese. The truth is, I really liked her when I was a kid. I spent about half my childhood at Tim’s house, and Mrs. Reese was way nicer than my own mother. She always had better snacks than at my house, she and her husband made the best burgers on the grill, and she always had kind words to say to me. Not to mention when my mother caught Tim and me in a lip lock that time when we were in middle school (practicing!), she did her best to smooth things out with my hysterical mother. I always envied Tim for his mother.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but we don’t have anything to talk about.”

I pull the phone away from my ear, but I’m stopped by the sound of Mrs. Reese crying out, “Please don’t hang up, Brooke! Please just hear me out!”

I let out a long breath. “There’s nothing to talk about. I… I saw a dead body in his basement. I’m sorry. I know it’s hard to hear that. I never would’ve thought Tim would do that either.”

“He wouldn’t!” Mrs. Reese has lost her composure. “Brooke, you knew him better than anyone. Do you really believe he would kill that girl?”

“The body was in his basement.”

“So someone else must have put it there!”

I feel a rush of sadness. She doesn’t believe it because she wasn’t stuck down in that wine cellar where a dead girl was wrapped in a tarp, rotting on the basement floor. She didn’t see the panic on Tim’s face when he realized the police were going down to the basement. It would have taken a lot to convince me that my former best friend was a serial killer, but that night made me a believer.

At that moment, Shane comes into the kitchen with his empty glass of water. He starts to fill it up, but when he notices I’m on the phone and catches the expression on my face, he raises an eyebrow at me. He mouths the words, Who is it?