Page 80 of Old Money

“Do you know the termmalice aforethought?” I ask, my foot still on the brake.

“What?” Jamie answers. “Is that likepremeditation?”

“Not quite. It’s broader than that—it’s from the Middle Ages. It’s the term they used to distinguish murder from other kinds of killing.”

“Like manslaughter.”

“Will you just listen?”

“Sorry.”

“Anyway, no one could really define it, but everyone agreed that malice aforethought was what made a homicide a murder.”

I pause, waiting for Jamie to interject again. He keeps quiet. I hear the distant rush of a car passing him on the highway.

“The strange part is that it stuck. Malice aforethought is still in the criminal code, and people are still arguing over what it means.”

“Are you going to tell me?” Jamie asks carefully.

“No, that’s the thing. The current legal definition is basically intent to kill or seriously hurt someone, or to act with reckless disregard for human life—something like that.”

“Sounds about right.”

“But it’s not. Malice is a feeling—a desire. It’s like love, right? This massive, powerful thing that can swallow up your whole life. You can’t boil it down to a simple definition. But you know it when you see it.”

I bite down on the inside of my lip, cringing at myself in Jamie’s silence.

“Okay,” he answers evenly—eventually. “I get that, I guess. I’m still lost on Patrick’s motivation.”

“Yeah,” I say, shrugging. “Me too. But I don’t think it’s worth trying to make sense of it. Malice isn’t logical.”

Don’t make me ramble on about love again. Please just get it.

“But you know it when you see it,” Jamie repeats. “And you saw it.”

“Yes,” I say, relieved. “Unmistakable.”

He pauses again, longer this time.

“Jamie?”

“I’m here,” he says. “Alice, I n—”

“What?” I wait. “Jamie? You cut out for a second.”

I glance at my phone screen. Full service.

“You’re in a dead zone,” I say louder.

Jamie’s voice cuts in again, garbled and choppy.

“—if he did. Okay? Are you—”

“I can’thearyou.” I’m nearly shouting now. “Jamie, hey.Jamie.”

A string of high-pitched beeps comes screeching through the phone so loudly that I flinch, my foot briefly lifting off the brake pedal. I slam down on it again, holding the phone an inch from my ear. The beeping stops and there’s a strangewhoosh, followed by a second of dead silence. I hear a muffled thud, a distant, arcing howl and then two soft clicks. The call cuts out.

Chapter Thirty-Six