The Last Invitation (87)

“So you’re saying . . .” Nope. Gabby’s mind still couldn’t get there. “What exactly are you saying?”

“This supposed group you’re blathering on about doesn’t exist, because of course it doesn’t. It couldn’t. But if it did, what good would hitting me with that word vomit do?” Faith no longer wore the sad and despondent expression of a mourner. She looked and sounded pissed. “You need to be smarter and a hell of a lot more careful.”

Not the first time Gabby had heard that. “Right . . .”

“Why would you make your family a target after you just moved them out of the firing line? Do you want Liam to go to prison?”

“I don’t . . .” Good Lord. What was she supposed to say? Gabby had no idea about the etiquette or proper response to being sideswiped by a near stranger who might also be a killer.

“You sound paranoid. No one will believe you and your stories about phantom deadly groups, so stop.” Faith hesitated as if waiting for a response. “Do you understand me? Yes or no? Say something.”

Gabby decided to give her one. “Okay.”

“You caused this. You shamed Jessa into helping you. You wrapped up all her insecurities and fired them back at her. Your judgment wore her down. Got her talking about being a better person, as if she needed your permission to exist.” Faith held out an arm. “Now look where we are.”

They’d separated from other people, but Gabby finally got the point. Most of the haze had cleared, and in its place . . . clarity. “You’re one of them. Part of the group.”

Faith rolled her eyes. “Do you not know what ‘stop’ means?”

Gabby willingly shouldered part of the blame for Jessa’s death, but the vast majority went to someone else. The person with the knife and the person who’d sent him there. “Did you know Earl was going to have Jessa killed?”

“Earl? What does he have to do with this?”

“I thought he . . . you know . . . the other . . .” Gabby couldn’t rein in her babbling response.

“Why are you crediting a man for any of this?”

“Retta said her co-leader, and I . . . Oh, God.” Gabby’s stomach flipped. A queasy feeling swept over her. She wanted to throw up and run and wake up and have all of this be a nightmare she could wash away with a scalding hot shower. “You. The co-leader. That’s you, not Earl.”

“If the group existed, it would exist because of me. Because of me going to Retta after a terrible case, a life-changing case, knowing she would listen because she’d buried her murdered best friend years before.”

“Excuses.”

“No, reality. Retta knew on an intimate, painful level about the system’s failures, law enforcement’s ambivalence, and the public’s short attention span.” Faith’s voice never lifted above a harsh whisper, but fury rattled through it. “You have no idea what it’s like to help someone only to have the system that’s designed to protect them suck away their hope then fail them.”

Gabby didn’t want to hear justifications and sad stories. “You knew what would happen to Jessa when she got to Baines’s house. You sent Trent.”

“We protect the group at all costs.”

Not a denial. “That’s madness. Do you hear yourself?” Gabby looked around, hoping to see reinforcements, but then would she even recognize them? Anyone could be in this group or related to it or working for it. The tentacles seemed to have endless reach. “You explain away the things you do with an end-justifies-the-means mentality while gleefully playing judge and jury.”

“Are you done talking yet?”

“Never mind that innocent people, people who aren’t part of the abusive crowd you want to eliminate, get hurt and killed in the process. Rob and Tami. Do you remember them? The reporters. They’d just gotten engaged. Baines. Poor Jessa.” Gabby could see how the hideous process justified itself, but this was too much.

“Regretful but necessary.” Faith’s expression didn’t change. “But the group didn’t touch your precious ex.”

This woman. “I guess you accept a certain level of collateral damage. Is that how you justify the string of deaths? Do you pretend they aren’t really people? Write their lives off to the good of the cause and keep on making judgments?”

“You don’t know anything about us or what the group believes. We live and die by these decisions and grieve every loss.” Faith tapped her hand against her chest. “We fix the mess others create and make it safer for you to travel around in your insular, wealthy world without fear. So you’re welcome.”

“You talk a good game, but you ordered the murder of your best friend.” Gabby saw Faith flinch and kept going. “Who does that? You can argue about justice and the system’s failures all you want, but how can you justify a betrayal like that?”

“I had no choice. You gave me no choice.”

Gabby would not take on that responsibility. She had always been honest—maybe too honest—with Jessa. “You sound like one of those abusers you hate so much.”

“She had been warned over and over. She knew she was being tested and ignored every alarm and warning, including mine.” Faith shook her head. “She didn’t know about my role, but she made it clear she was under fire, and I gave her support. She promised she would stop engaging in dangerous activities, but you kept dragging her back in.”