Page 98 of I Will Ruin You

“So that’s when I went to the garage and found him. Facedown, not moving. There was blood all over the place and I didn’t have to feel for a pulse to know. He was dead. I hadn’t touched a thing except the door handle and I wiped that down and I threw out the shoes I was wearing because I was worried I might have left footprints in the garage.”

“They killed him,” she said. “Did you hear a shot or anything?”

I shook my head. “There’d been so much banging around I thought maybe they’d beat him to death. A story online said he’d been shot. So maybe they used a silencer or something.”

“Who could they have been?” Bonnie asked. “Why would they kill him?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. But they were looking for something, that’s for sure.”

Bonnie put her head in her hands for a moment. “We have to tell Marta.”

“If we do,” I said, “and she doesn’t believe me, I’ve put myself at the scene. I had a motive, I was there.”

“Yeah, but there’s those two that came to the house.”

“There’s just my word that that happened. I could be making that part up, for all she knows.”

“Oh come on. She knows you. She knows you wouldn’t do anything like that.”

I was not convinced. “Does she? Who knows what someone in my situation might do? Accused of something like that.”

Bonnie was thinking. “Do you think it happened at all? Do you think someone—someone from your school—did abuse him? I mean, why come up with something like that if there’s absolutely no basis for it?”

“I think someone did do it to him. Someone from the school. But how does that become a case of mistaken identity? Someone messes with you, forces you to do things to them, how do you not remember who that was?”

“None of this makes any sense,” Bonnie said.

“No shit.” I glanced at the digital display on the microwave, noticed the time. “You won’t believe this, but I have to go to this thing at the school.” I quickly filled her in.

She shook her head in exasperation. “Cancel.”

“If I don’t go, and Marta finds out, it would look like her visit freaked me out. I have to see these parents.”

“I don’t know how much more the two of us can take.”

We got up from the table and held each other. “I know,” I said.

“What now?” Bonnie asked. “I don’t know, what with that man being killed, whether our problems are over or just beginning.”

I was at the school forty-five minutes later, a good fifteen minutes before the meeting was supposed to start. Trent had arranged for it to be held in the library. Not only was that a good place to set up chairs, but we’d be surrounded by books. Seemed appropriate.

I was out of the car and heading into the school when I heard a woman call out my name. She was getting out of a blue SUV parked over on the far side of the lot. She looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place her. I stopped and waited for her to close the distance between us. I assumed she was part of the delegation tonight and wanted a few words with me ahead of time.

“Mr. Boyle,” she said once she had reached me. She was in her early fifties, thin and wan-looking, in a shapeless pale green dress that hung on her like it was still on the hanger.

“Yes?”

“I’m Fiona LeDrew.”

Now I knew where I’d seen her. On the news. Christ, it wasn’t enough the LeDrews were suing me? They didn’t like the books on my curriculum, either?

“I came by late this afternoon and you’d already left, but they said you’d be at some meeting tonight and I wanted to catch you before it started.”

She extended a hand hesitantly, unsure I would take it. I did.

“Ms. LeDrew.” I wasn’t sure what to say. “I don’t believe we’ve ever spoken, certainly not recently.”

“No, I don’t think we’ve met. Not even when Mark attended here.”