The Other People: A Novel(77)
“Even if I could give them to you, it wouldn’t help.” She lowered her voice. “They’re all fake. My boss is pretty pissed off, to be honest.”
Katie stared at her. Fake. She left the shop in a daze. Breathe, she told herself. Keep calm. Think rationally. Chances are, all of this is just a weird, horrible coincidence. Not a conspiracy. Real life. She needed to sit down, have a coffee, put all of this in perspective.
She found herself a seat in the local coffee shop, ordered a cappuccino and gave Sam some juice and a banana. Then she took the business card out of her purse.
THE OTHER PEOPLE.
Fran, what did you do?
What does it matter? Dad’s killer is dead. Justice. Rip the card up. Forget it. Get on with your life.
“Cappuccino?”
She glanced up at the waitress.
“Oh, yes, thank you.”
The waitress put the overflowing cup down on the table. Katie smiled politely, waited until she had walked away and picked her phone up.
Forget it. Get on with your life.
She opened Safari and googled: how to access the Dark Web.
Whatever Fran had done, she had to see for herself.
There was only one problem with hatred, Gabe thought. And it wasn’t that it would eat you up or destroy you. That was bullshit. Hatred could fuel you through the worst of times. Grief, despair, terror. Love and forgiveness might keep you warm, but hatred would power your rocket all the way to the moon.
No, the problem was that, eventually, hatred burned itself out. And now, when he really wanted it, when he needed to summon it for the woman who had taken his daughter, he found that his tank was dry. Running on empty.
He looked at Katie wearily.
“That’s why your sister was there. Repaying her Favor.”
Katie nodded. “I think so.”
“Why didn’t she just refuse?”
“You’ve seen the website. Do you really think refusing is an option?”
He would have liked to have said yes. It was just a website. Probably run by a couple of geeky kids with acne, an inferiority complex and a grudge against the world. And then a twinge in his side reminded him of the eight stitches pulling his serrated flesh together. The hot burn of the knife. The look in the man’s eyes.
Failure to complete a Favor threatens the very integrity of the site.
She was right, he thought. And her sister had had a daughter. A daughter she would probably have done anything to protect. Except it didn’t work out like that.
“I suppose she thought, better my family than hers?” he said bitterly.
Katie’s lips thinned. “I don’t believe Fran would have been involved if she had known what was going to happen.”
“But she was involved, even if it was just in getting Jen to let down her defenses so the killer could get in. She was still complicit in my wife’s death.”
“I know.”
She sipped her drink and winced as the glass touched her injured nose. Gabe felt the anger subside. This wasn’t her fault.
“What a fucking mess.”
“Yeah.”
“Who are these people?”
“Anybody, everybody. Obviously, there’s someone pulling the strings, but mostly it’s ordinary people looking for a way to ease their grief and pain. That’s what the website takes advantage of. And once you’re pulled in, that’s it.”
“What is it they say about six degrees of separation? We’re all connected in some way?”
“Exactly. Everybody has a use. However small. Perhaps the florist who gave me that card was just repaying a Favor.”
“Pyramid selling for the homicidal,” he muttered. “You sound like you’ve done your research.”
“After I found out about Jayden, I spent a lot of time lurking on the website. Trying to make sense of it all. I thought about passing on the details to the police but—”
“What?”
“I was scared. If they could get to a prisoner on remand—”
She didn’t need to finish.
“So, I just put it to the back of my mind, resolved not to think about it anymore, to concentrate on my family, the living. That’s what Dad would have wanted.”
“Shame your sister didn’t feel the same.”
“Don’t blame her. I was angry about Dad, too. If I hadn’t spoken to that woman, none of this would have happened.”
“Those were just words.”
“But I meant them.”
“Most of us, in our darkest moments, have wished someone dead.”
“The difference is, the Other People grant those wishes.”
Like a fucking psychotic fairy godmother. Gabe looked at Katie.
“In the morning, we need to go to the police. You need to tell them everything you know.”
She nodded. She looked pale and drawn, the bruising around her eyes darker, although the swelling on her nose had gone down a little. And he was about to make her night even worse.
“There’s something else. The police found the car Izzy was taken in.”
She seemed to sit up straighter. “And?”
He thought about the decomposed body. He was pretty sure that Fran was responsible. But mentioning it would only complicate things, and now was not the time to tell Katie that her sister was a murderer.