Page 127 of Old Money

It pooled swiftly from the side of her face, a lopsided halo.He reached out, but stopped short of touching her. His hand throbbed, the pain slowly bringing him back to consciousness. He nudged Caitlin with his toe (had he beenkickingher?) and said her name. He nudged again, harder. She wobbled, but wouldn’t wake. Her mouth parted and he caught sight of bloodstained teeth. Panicked now, he nudged again, only this time it was more like a kick. Her body rocked back slightly, then rolled forward, the momentum tipping her over the edge and into the pool. Theo stood, frozen in terror. Then he heard the sound of running footsteps from somewhere on the hill. He turned from Caitlin’s lifeless corpse and fled into the dark.

“I didn’t want to, Alice,” I hear Theo say. “I swear to you. It just spiraled.”

He puts a hand on my wrist, and I jerk. He quickly pulls his arm back, then lifts both his hands up and looks at me, despairing. He covers his face with his palms.

“I didn’t plan to hurt her like that,” he says, weeping and muffled. “I never even knew I could.”

Theo drops his hands into his lap and sits back against the wall.

“It’s unforgivable,” he says, looking straight ahead. “But if you’d been there—I don’t know. I wish I could make you understand how it just—”

His hands go out in front of him again, like he’s reaching for something he can’t quite see.

“It happened. It just happened.”

I make myself look at him, sealing this moment in my mind.

“Why are you here, Theo?”

“Jamie called me. He told me about last night.”

“Jamieknew?”

“No, not technically. I never told him everything. But he—at some point, he had suspicions.”

When?In high school? Did something click years later? Did someone tell him something?

Theo shakes his head, reading the thoughts on my face.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “I never asked. We just stopped talking.”

“Who else?” I ask, wishing I didn’t have to.

“A lot of people, I think,” Theo says, eyes downturned. “No one says so—you know how it is here. But I’ll get a look. Or one of those comments, you know? ‘Staying out of trouble?’ ”

He cringes.

“You tell yourself you’re paranoid,” he adds.

“Jules?” I ask in a tiny voice.

Theo’s face pinches.

“I tried. I came close to telling her a few times. But no, never managed it.” He swallows. “Fucking coward, I know.”

I think of Jules telling me about how stressed-out Theo was this summer—because of the campaign, the work piling up. I wonder if he told himself that too.

Still leaning back against the wall, he lolls his head toward me.

“Hey,” he says wearily. “Let’s do the rest at the station, okay? They’ll need this on tape anyway.”

I hold still until he looks at me, his face all trepidation. I give him a reassuring smile—I can’t help it. He’s my brother, and this is it. Everything changes on the other side of this moment. So I smile. I tell him I love him. Then I reach into my pocket and take out my phone.

Theo looks down at it, the recorder still running.

“Atta girl.” He sniffs and nods, and then he smiles too. “You win.”

Chapter Fifty-Eight