I had lots more to say, but not to him. If it had been Koenig asking, I would have told him that I didn’t want Grace to be missing. That I wanted Beck back. That he wasn’t my foster father, he was my father. That I didn’t know what was going on with Olivia, but that I was just trying to keep my head above water. I wanted them to leave me alone. That was all. Just leave me alone to work through this on my own.
I said, “Yes.”
Heifort was just frowning at me. I couldn’t tell if he believed me or not. After a space, he said, “I guess we’re done for now. William, take care of him, would you?”
Koenig nodded shortly as Heifort pushed away from the table. Breathing felt slightly easier after Heifort had gone down the hall.
“I’ll take you back to your car,” Koenig told me. He made an efficient gesture that meant for me to stand. I did — surprised, for some reason, that the floor felt solid beneath my feet. My legs felt vaguely jellied.
I started down the hall after Koenig, but he stopped when his cell phone rang. He retrieved it from his duty belt and examined it.
“Hold on,” Koenig said. “I have to take this call. Hello, William Koenig. Okay, sir. Wait. What happened now?”
I put my hands in my pockets. I felt light-headed: strung out from the questioning, from not eating, from the images of Olivia. I could hear Heifort’s voice booming through the open door of the dispatch room to my left. The dispatchers laughed at something he said. It was weird to think that he could just switch it off like that — righteous anger at that girl’s death instantly changing to office jokes in the next room over.
Koenig, on the phone, was trying to convince someone that if his estranged wife had taken his car that it was not theft as it was co-marital property.
I heard, “Hey, Tom.”
There were probably dozens of Toms in Mercy Falls. But I knew instantly which one it was. I recognized the odor of his aftershave and the prickling of my skin.
The dispatch room had a window to the hall on the opposite side from us, and I saw Tom Culpeper. He was jingling his keys in the pocket of his coat — one of those barn coats described as rugged and classic and four hundred dollars that were usually worn by people who spend more time in Land Rovers than barns. His face had the gray, sagging look of someone who hasn’t slept, but his voice sounded smooth and in control. Lawyer voice.
I tried to decide what was worse: risk talking to Culpeper, or brave the puke smell in the kitchen. I contemplated retreat.
Heifort said, “Tom! Hey, devil. Hold on, let me get you in.” He breezed out of the dispatch room, down the dogleg hall that led around to the room where Culpeper was, and opened the door. He clapped a hand on Culpeper’s shoulder. Of course they knew each other. “You here for work or are you just stirring up trouble?”
“Just coming to see about that coroner’s report,” Culpeper said. “What did Geoffrey Beck’s kid have to say about it?”
Heifort stepped back just enough that Culpeper could see past him to where I stood.
“Speak of the devil,” Culpeper said.
It would’ve been polite to say hi. I didn’t say anything.
“How’s your old man?” Culpeper asked. When he asked, it was deeply ironic, not only because it was clear that he didn’t care, but also because Culpeper was so far from the sort of person that would say “old man” that it was obvious he was being sarcastic. He added, “I’m surprised he’s not down here with you.”
My voice was stiff. “He would be if he could.”
“I’ve been talking with Lewis Brisbane,” Culpeper said. “Speaking of legal advice. The Brisbanes know I’m there for them if they need it.”
I couldn’t quite bring myself to fully ponder the implications of Tom Culpeper acting as lawyer and confidant for Grace’s parents. In any case, the possibility of any cordial future with them seemed incredibly distant. The possibility of any future that I had hoped for seemed incredibly distant.
“You really are completely gorked, aren’t you?” Tom Culpeper said with wonder, and I realized I had been silent for too long, unaware of what my expression had been doing while I was lost in my dismay. He shook his head, not so much cruel as struck by the strangeness of us misfits. “Word for the wise: Try the insanity plea. God bless America. Beck always has liked them cracked.”
Heifort, to his credit, tried not to smile.
Koenig snapped his phone shut. His eyes were narrowed. “Gentlemen,” he said, “I am taking Mr. Roth back to his vehicle now, unless you need him for anything else.”
Heifort shook his head, slow and portentous.
Culpeper turned toward me, his hands in his pockets. There was no anger in his voice. Of course, there wouldn’t be — he had all the cards in this game. “When you next see your father,” he told me, “you can tell him that his wolves will all be gone in fourteen days. Should’ve been done a long time ago. I don’t know what you all thought you were playing with, but it’s done.”
And I saw Tom Culpeper looking after me, not vindictive. Just a raw wound reopened too frequently to ever heal. How could I judge him? He didn’t know the truth. He couldn’t know. He thought they were nothing but animals, and us careless neighbors with misplaced priorities.
But I also saw this: It would not stop until we were dead.
Koenig took my arm and looked over his shoulder at Culpeper. “I think you are confusing the son with the father, Mr. Culpeper.”
“Maybe,” Culpeper said. “You know what they say about apples and trees, though.”
The thing about that saying was that it was pretty true.
Koenig said, “It’s time to go.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
GRACE
Sam was late coming home.
I wouldn’t be worried.
Without him, I was restless and useless in Beck’s house; at least when I was a wolf, I didn’t feel my lack of purpose and goal so strongly. I’d never realized just how much of my day, before, was filled with homework and cooking and planning crazy things with Rachel and yet more homework and Olivia and library visits and repairing the loose board on the deck because Dad would never get around to it. Reading was a reward for work, and without work, I couldn’t seem to settle down with a book, though Beck’s basement was full of them.
All I’d thought about before was graduating with good enough grades that I didn’t have to worry about where I went to college. And then, after I’d met Sam, keeping him human was added to that list.