Page 72 of Death in the Family

“What about his ties to Swanton? Someone must have followed that lead. If he was so obsessed with the place that he risked giving himself away by telling those women where he was really from, maybe he went back there. Has anyone combed the town to see if they could figure out who Bram really is?”

I shrug. Say nothing.

Tim casts a glance around the bar. If he’s picturing me sitting in a place just like it, talking to a killer, he doesn’t let on. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot, actually,” he says. “Everything you’ve been through. Tell me something. How much did Carson explain to you about Stockholm syndrome?” Folding his hands, he leans closer. The act reminds me of the day I met Carson, when he was still just a harmless shrink. “What I’m asking,” says Tim, “is how much did you know about that condition before you went to see him?”

“Doesn’t everyone know about Stockholm syndrome?”

“The concept? Sure. But the symptoms, the circumstances surrounding it, the particulars about onset and—”

“You’d make a great therapist,” I say.

“I’m serious. How much did you know about that stuff?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Carson diagnosed you.”

“So?”

“So do you agree with him, or was that just a convenient excuse to justify letting Bram go?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re forgetting,” he says grimly. “Carson manipulated me, too. I know how persuasive he can be. He convinced everyone at the NYPD you weren’t in control down there. I’m sure he was believable. I’m sure it made sense. But here’s the thing, Shana. You’re stronger than that. I think you suspected he was wrong, and went along with that diagnosis anyway.”

“And why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’reyou. You need to know what makes people tick. You like to get inside their heads. Look what happened on the island, the way you solved that case. Thehowisn’t goodenough—you have to knowwhy. If you killed Bram that day, down in that basement, you’d have lost your chance to find out.”

“Find outwhat?”

“Why he took those other women’s lives and not yours.”

Under his cartoon eyebrows, Tim’s eyes are serious as death. I’ll never look at his eyebrows and see a clown again.

“You’re wrong,” I say, because I don’t know how else to play it. How can I explain without telling him the truth?

“You were afraid it would happen all over again on the island,” Tim says. “That you’d let the killer escape and put other people at risk.”

“Every investigator’s afraid of that.”

“Maybe so. But promise me you won’t beat yourself up over it, Shane. You’re not the one at fault.”

I study Tim Wellington’s face. We’re colleagues, but we’re friends now, too, and his need to protect me stems from that. Tim’s kind and honest, and if I ever meet his family I know they’ll be just like him. But Tim thinks too much of me. He’s too quick to forgive and forget everything I’ve done. Tim doesn’t just refuse to accept my demons, he refuses to acknowledge they exist. There’s darkness in me he doesn’t see. He doesn’t want to.

When I think about Carson now, I suspect that’s why I stayed with him. Deep down I knew he had a nasty side, and nasty is what I deserve. Both of us harbor secrets. Hard to say whose are worse. “Promise,” Tim says again. And I do.

It isn’t the first lie I’ve told him. That happened in the Sinclairs’ house when he inquired about my scar. I said Bram had nothing to do with my deformity. In fact, it links us sure as a chain.

Bram wasn’t lying when he declared we have history. I wish I could say his claim didn’t register until after he escaped, but I wasalready wise to him in the belly of the East Village. It was there I cracked open his stories and inspected the cold goo inside until I found the nucleus. The heart of it all.

There’s darkness in me, just like there is in Bram, but I refuse to let it take over. I owe it to my family, to A-Bay and Tim, to fight. I have skin in the game, no question, but I’ve got skills, too.

Enough to defend about a thousand islands.