The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(89)

“You were all in some kind of, what, treatment center together?”

You could say that. I looked at the table and blinked as if I hadn’t heard her.

“This must be very difficult for you,” she said gently, trying a different tactic.

I bit my lip, hard, so I wouldn’t laugh. She thought I was trying not to cry, and put a comforting hand on my shoulder.

“If it was self-defense, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Little did she know.

“Just a few more questions, and then the doctors will come in to talk to you, okay?”

No response.

“Someone reported a homicide at that abandoned warehouse. Any idea who that might’ve been?”

I had my suspicions; David Shaw topped the list. He thought I was dead, of course, and someone would have to answer for killing me, wouldn’t they? He was going to blame it on Jude, I bet.

“And the hospital admitted a boy not much older than you, not far from the warehouse, only a half hour before we got there. Any idea who that might’ve been?”

Daniel.

My heart seized on the idea, but I couldn’t ask. I couldn’t say anything. I looked out the window instead. We were on the twelfth floor, and New York City stretched out below us. It looked like a doll world from up here, with pieces I could move or play with or break.

The door squeaked on its hinges, and a doctor gestured from the doorway to Detective Howard. “Psych’s on the way,” he said in a low voice. “Someone’s here to see her, though.”

A person stood behind him, but I couldn’t see who it was.

“Are you the mother?” the detective asked.

But the woman who stepped into the room was not my mother. She was young, in her twenties, and wore tortoiseshell glasses on her pale, round, freckled face. She was outfitted in skinny jeans and Chucks, and for the life of me, I had no idea who she was.

She extended her hand to the detective. “I’m Rochelle Hoffman. I’m the lawyer.”





67


SHE WAS JAMIE’S COUSIN, IT turned out. He’d called her as soon as he’d dispatched his police escort. Then he’d given the cops her number and told them it belonged to my parents. They believed him, of course. They had no choice.

When I was finally alone with her, I cut the catatonic act and told her I wanted to talk to Jamie. She made it happen, probably with Jamie’s help, and left us alone. He pulled up a chair and sat in it backward.

“So. Here’s the deal.”

He could not talk fast enough to satisfy me.

“Daniel’s in the hospital too.” I opened my mouth to ask about him, but Jamie said quickly, “He’s okay. We’ll have to Wormtongue our way in after dark or something, stage a hospital break for him and Noah. Maybe during the shift change.”

“What about us?”

“Well, you would be a murder suspect, if I hadn’t managed to painstakingly, painfully, at great cost to my physical and mental well-being, persuade the police otherwise.”

“I’m grateful.”

“You sound it.”

“Does this mean we can just go?”

“Sort of. Rochelle’s taking care of it.”

“What did your cousin say we should do? About everything?”

“Well . . .” He drew out the word slowly. “I sort of described the situation hypothetically.”

“Elaborate.”

“As in, ‘Let’s say this billionaire was funding these messed-up genetic experiments on teenagers . . .”

“Right . . .”

“Let’s say these teens have superpowers . . .”

“Uh-huh . . .”

“Let’s say one of them ended up killing some people with her thoughts sometimes and also with her bare hands. Hypothetically.”

I buried my face in my hands.

“Let’s say there was physical evidence tying her to some of the deaths . . .”

Kells. Wayne. Ernst. “Christ, Jamie.”

“And other evidence had been planted to make it look like she was guilty of murders she didn’t commit.”

Phoebe. Tara.

“Oh, and, just for fun, to make it interesting, let’s say all of these teens have documented histories of mental illness. What do you think our chances would be if we went up against said billionaire in court?”

“I’m guessing you mentioned the stuff we have? The videos? Documents?”

“Yup.”

“I’m guessing her response was not encouraging.”

“Shocking, isn’t it? She said—hypothetically, of course—that the documents couldn’t be authenticated. Chain of custody problems, not admissible, blah, blah. I don’t know, do I look like a lawyer?”

I inhaled slowly, trying to stay calm.

“I even left out the parts where you and Noah died and came back to life, but for some reason she still seems to think I’m f*cking with her. She was kind of huffy about it, actually. But she’s trustworthy. And smart. With her brains and my awesome power, we’ll be able to leave whenever we want.”

“Good news.”

“P.S., you were right about Noah. I am willing to acknowledge that now.”

“About what? About him being alive?”