Page 65 of Old Money

We look at each other for a long moment, the awful, unknown possibilities hanging in the air. Then he continues:

“So yeah, I’d seen him snap a few times, but I never connected it to Caitlin. I never even thought about it—not until Jessie.”

“Did she know who you were when you started dating?” I murmur. “Theo’s friend, I mean.”

“No,” Jamie says. “Not until a couple months in. Meeting friends and all that.”

He hedges for a moment, glancing up at me.

“It’s a little weird, talking about my ex-girlfriend,” he says with sudden sharpness. “After the thing with us—whatever. I don’t even know—the thing where we were having sex for, like, three weeks and you’d sneak out every morning? And refused to talk about it?”

His sideways glance becomes a glare—the wary, scornful look you’d give a nosy stranger or an uninvited guest. Someone you don’t need to be nice to.

“Just saying, next time, maybe have the awkward conversation. Maybe get on the same page with the guy you’re sleeping with before you suspect him of murder.”

I bend my head, acknowledging the hit.

“Okay. Maybe tell the girl what you know about the murder,” I say in an even tone. “Yeah?”

Jamie launches into a response, but I shake my head. We’ll get to that part, but we need to finish this part first.

“Go on.” I nod. “You were dating Jessie.”

“Anyway,” Jamie says in a calmer voice, his fingers drumming the table. “Jessie knew I had some old Wheaton friends, but I guess I’d never mentioned Theo by name. Then I did, and—boom.”

“What?” I prod him—no need to be gentle now. “You had a fight?”

“At first, yeah,” Jamie answers. “She accused me of keeping it secret from her—the fact that I knew Theo. I was like, ‘Why the hell would I do that?’ And she just said it: ‘Because he killed a girl.’ ”

I knew it was coming, but I still flinch.

“Sorry,” Jamie mumbles, rubbing at his hairline.

“It’s fine, he did,” I answer sharply, waving him on.

“That was the first time I’d ever heard someone just lay it out like that—plain and simple, no hesitation.

She kind of yelled it, actually. And I did the whole knee-jerk ‘What are you talking about?’ thing.

But it wasn’t even a fight, really. As soon as she said it—” He shakes his head.

“It was like she hit the light switch. And now...”

He rears back with a look of dawning, dreadful recognition.

“Is that when you looked into getting the case reopened?” I ask. “Was that Jessie’s idea?”

“No. No, she had other ideas—wearing wires, getting the higher-ups involved. I thought that was batshit ridiculous. One thing at a time, y’know?

Let me do some research before calling the district attorney.

” He exhales a light tsk. “ That was the fight. Jessie was dead set on this stealth plan. She said my way was too risky—that Theo would catch wind of it somehow.”

Jamie looks away, and I wait for him to say it: And she was right .

“So I told him myself,” he says, gazing impassively into the hazy air.

I hold still, replaying the sentence in my head.

“Yeah.” Jamie gives a jerky, defensive shrug. “I was pissed. I’d known this guy my whole life, and she—”

He cuts himself off, looking back at me—suddenly remembering that I’m the one he’s pissed at now.

“Whatever. I told him,” Jamie says. “But only the part about getting the case reinvestigated—nothing about investigating him . We were getting beers after work one night, and I just mentioned I’d been looking into it, casually. Just to see what he’d say.”

“Jamie,” I whisper.

“And he freaked out,” Jamie continues. “In a big way—a weird way. ‘You think you’re some hero? You think anyone cares?’ He wasn’t even making sense, but it was like he couldn’t stop.

It was that tunnel-vision thing, but aimed at me this time.

I got up to leave and he was still going—ranting. So I just left.”

Jamie shrugs again, slowly this time.

“Like I said, I already thought it was him. But after that, it was real. All those years—it had been him the whole time.”

I still can’t find the words to name it—the seismic shift that happens when you understand that someone you have loved unconditionally has also been a stranger to you.

The way it fractures the very lens with which you look back on your own life.

The desperate urge to mend it, knowing all the while that glass cannot be uncracked.

“What did you do?” I ask, though part of me already knows.

“Nothing. I dropped it—panicked, I guess,” Jamie answers in a hollow drone. “I figured it would come out anyway, with Theo becoming this big shot. It wasn’t on me to blow the whistle. I could just move on with my own life. Why nuke it all over what he’d done, right?”

Jamie sits back as far as the shallow booth will allow.

“Right,” I say quietly. “Then I came home.”

Jamie doesn’t reply. He just exhales, long and hard.

“Yeah,” he says finally, looking past me. “Yeah, you did. And I should’ve told you—I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone along with your whole Patrick vendetta. I know I owe you an explanation, but I don’t have one right now—not a good one. I’m gonna need a minute.”

“Give me the bad version then,” I say, cutting through his bluster. “Try.”

Jamie puffs and leans over the table, his elbows landing with a hard thunk.

“It’s like—it’s the what-if. You can be ninety-eight percent sure, but as long as that two percent is there—I don’t know.” He looks away, still scowling. “I told you, it sounds like bullshit.”

I watch him, angry and shifting in his seat. Then I shake my head.

“No,” I say. “I get it.”

I would’ve done the same , I think. I would do the same right now.

If someone walked into this bar—some random girl from high school, anyone—and told me Theo hadn’t killed Caitlin, I would shut my mouth and listen.

Even with his confession still ringing in my ears, I would want to believe.

I would leap at the thinnest shred of hope that it was somehow someone else.

I might just settle for the fantasy of it—just play along for a month or two, and relish the relief.

Maybe Jamie’s reasons are entirely different. I don’t know—I don’t need them. I’m not much interested in reasons anymore.