Page 58 of Old Money

It was Jamie. It was a hurt, angry kid, in a body much older than he was.

Caitlin had been mean to him. She’d mocked him in the cruel, specific way that only an older teenage girl can do to a younger teenage boy.

And then he’d seen her scolded too—drunk and chided by her mother for playing silly, childish games.

Had it made him feel powerful and bold to see her punished?

Or had he always had violence within him, waiting like an unstruck match?

I run down the dark street until I reach the turnoff at Station Hill Road.

I veer right, skittering down the slope, across the street, into the parking lot and up the staircase to the old wooden overpass above the tracks.

I thunder across the splintered floorboards, down the steps to the platform and run until I reach the solitary bench in the middle.

I put out my arms and crash to a stop, bent over and heaving for breath.

Not Patrick. Jamie.

Of course, Jamie. My God, how had I never seen it?

How had I never even wondered? Why else would he have helped me—gone to such lengths, taken such risks?

Who would do that but the terrified man who’d once been the angry boy who’d done an unspeakable thing?

I’d been hell-bent on proving Patrick’s guilt, once and for all.

Of course Jamie would do anything to help me.

The pieces come back together easily. I sit on the bench, struck by the awful, obvious truth. I’m the one who got everything wrong about Caitlin’s death, and Caitlin’s killer. I stare out over the water, the village looming behind me, forever changed by what I’ve done.

Not until the first hints of daylight seep into the dark sky do I know what I have to do next.

I wait for sunrise, shivering in the brackish river breeze. Even now, the thought keeps coming back:

He didn’t mean it. He couldn’t. I know him.

But what the hell do I know? Who am I to judge what he, or anyone else, is capable of? Jamie’s just another person I thought I knew. He’s just another person I got very, very wrong.