The Black Coats(53)

Mirabelle raised her head. “You know me?”

Marc dropped a trembling hand. “I think about you every day.”

Thea sat back on her knees. The rest of Team Banner, she knew, waited silently in the hallway to see what happened. She stared down at Mirabelle. “Can I let you up? Are you going to do something stupid?”

Mirabelle shook her head. “No.”

Thea reached out to Marc. “Give me the knife.” It wasn’t a request, and he swiftly obeyed. Thea stood and watched as Mirabelle curled her body up from the ground. Thea tossed the knife out the back door.

After a second, Marc reached forward and took Mirabelle’s elbow. “Here. Come sit in here.” Mirabelle simply nodded, letting Marc Mitzi lead her into the living room, where she sank into a comfortable recliner. “I’ll get you some tea.” He gestured to Thea. “You?”

“No, thank you,” Thea said.

“I’d like tea.” Casey’s voice was sharp, and Marc leaped backward as the rest of Team Banner stepped into the room.

“Oh God, there’s more of you. Y’all are really here to kill me, aren’t you?”

“No.” Thea shook her head. “We’re not. We’re just friends with Mirabelle.”

He raised an eyebrow. “She must have good friends, who would break into a house with her.”

Louise raised her chin. “She has good reason to hurt you, you know.”

Marc shook his head as he reached for the kettle, his voice achingly sad. “I know it. What kind of tea would you like, Mirabelle?”

Mirabelle’s exhausted voice drifted in from the living room. “Any kind.”

“That leaves me too many options.” Marc opened a cabinet to reveal what was easily thirty tea boxes. “Since I don’t drink anymore—” He gestured to the cabinet. “I need options. You could say that I’ve become a tea snob.” As he reached for a lemon ginger, Thea noticed the tremor in his hands. Marc Mitzi is still very scared.

After settling a tea bag into a red mug, Marc turned to Thea. “Do you think I could talk to her?”

“Yes,” answered Thea, “but we won’t be leaving here without her.”

Marc eyed them wearily. “How do I know you won’t hurt me when we’re done?”

Thea looked deep into his light brown eyes. “You don’t.”

Marc nodded for a moment and then with a sigh headed into the living room. The kettle began bubbling on the stove. Thea took a seat near the door, where she could hear every word. She heard Marc settle on the chair across from Mirabelle, his voice already choking.

“On November sixth, the night before your parents died, my girlfriend at the time had left me. . . .” Thea heard the whole story, unfolded over two hours. She heard how Marc was so drunk that he had sideswiped another car even before he plowed through Mirabelle’s parents’ truck. How he woke up on the side of the road with some mild bruises, two broken legs, and a million paramedics around him. How when he learned what he had done, he wished for death. He had tried to commit suicide twice, before his short prison sentence. He told Mirabelle about the strange blessing of prison—that it had allowed him to become sober for the first time since he was sixteen years old. He told Mirabelle about his childhood, about his own neglectful parents, who were gone most nights and spent the days passed out on the living room couch.

He talked about marrying, and then separating from his wife. Spoke then of his children, of how they gave him purpose. Team Banner sat stiffly in the kitchen as he retrieved a box and brought it into the living room, showing Mirabelle everything: the newspaper clippings of her parents’ deaths. His court documents. A small mention of her in the newspaper as Miss Teen Austin Runner-Up. They were all nestled together in Marc Mitzi’s box of shame. Through Mirabelle’s sobs, he begged for her forgiveness, his own cries echoing through the kitchen. Tears clouded Thea’s eyes. Casey was staring at the ceiling. Bea and Louise were openly weeping.

Thea found her mind shifting from what she thought she had known. Men like Raphael Amadoor wouldn’t change unless someone forced them to. But Marc Mitzi? His justice was somehow worse: a living hell made of his own guilt, one that he would carry with him until the day he died. Thea realized that no justice they would have brought to this man would equal the disgrace he felt now, bowed at Mirabelle’s knee. This man would pay for his crime in his mind for the rest of his life; did they even need to be here? Maybe, she thought, thinking of Mirabelle. Maybe this was needed in a different way.

Casey was drumming her fingers on the table when Thea grabbed them. “Enough. You’re driving me crazy.”

Casey coughed and leaned back. “Sorry. I just keep thinking—why did they allow Mirabelle to do this? Seriously, why would they? The luminaries always do their research. Why didn’t they know that he had children who could have easily been in the house?”

Louise bit her lip. “Robin died. Maybe they didn’t have time to do any research. Things fell through the cracks?”

Thea bit her lip. “Maybe. But does Julie Westing seem like someone who makes sloppy mistakes? An inheritance is a very purposeful thing.” The group was silent. Thea ran her fingers over her lips. Could the Black Coats make mistakes? Was anyone checking on that? Had this been a mistake, or something else? She shook the thoughts loose from her head, trying to focus on her team.