Page 144 of This is Why We Lied

Faith tried again, “I know we’ll eventually get DNA from the fetus, but Mercy was hooking up with other men. It’d be easy for Christopher’s defense attorney to argue that one of her hook-ups found out about the pregnancy, got jealous, and stabbed Mercy to death.”

Will did the tight headshake again, but not as an answer. “Sara, could you talk to Jon again? You’ve got a good rapport with him. He’s probably seen a lot of things up here. People tend to forget when kids are around.”

Sara asked, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he said. “You’re part of this team, too.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Faith watched them stare at each other in that secret way that excluded everyone else. She was yet again the hilarious sidekick in their romcom. Though she would like an award for not looking in Sara’s suitcase when she’d had the chance.

She asked Will, “Ready?”

“Ready.”

He stepped back so Faith could go down the stairs first. Which was gentlemanly, but also dangerous because Faith had nobody to land on if she fell. She slapped a mosquito off her arm. The sun was like a laser beam drilling into her retinas. She was so ready to get out of this place.

Will was more relaxed than usual as they walked down the trail. He stuck his left hand in his pocket. His right was still pressed to his chest.

Faith couldn’t think of a way to be subtle, so she asked, “Tell me about you and Dave when you were kids.”

He looked down at her, clearly needing an explanation.

“Dave ran away from the children’s home,” she said. “Whatever he was doing down in Atlanta, he probably did to Christopher up here.”

Will grunted, but he answered, “He made up stupid nicknames. Stole your stuff. Blamed you for shit he did. Spit in your food. Found ways to get you in trouble.”

“Sounds like a winner.” Faith still couldn’t figure out a way to be delicate. “Was Dave sexually abusing anyone?”

“He was definitely having sex, but that’s not unusual. Kids who are sexually abused tend to focus on sex for connection. And sex feels good, so they want to keep doing it.”

“Was it boys, girls, both?”

“Girls.”

Faith took the way his jaw tightened to mean that Dave had been with Will’s ex-wife. Which hardly made him an outlier.

Will said, “Being sexually abused as a kid doesn’t mean you grow up to sexually abuse kids. Otherwise, half the world would be pedophiles.”

“You’re right,” she said. “But let’s isolate Dave from that statistic. He was thirteen when he got to the lodge, but they aged him down to eleven. Being thirteen with everyone treating you like you’re eleven is infantilizing. Dave must have felt angry, frustrated, emasculated, confused. But he was also grooming Mercy. He was having sex with her at least by the time she was fifteen, and he was twenty. Where was Christopher when Dave was raping his baby sister?”

“Not protecting her, you mean?”

“I mean, Christopher was afraid of Dave, too.”

“That’d be a really great motive if Christopher had murdered Dave.”

“Maybe we’ll get back to the compound and he’ll have a bomb strapped to his chest and you’ll have to defuse it before it detonates.”

Will glanced down at her.

“Come on, Danger Dog. You’ve already run through a burning building and nearly tumbled over a waterfall.”

“I would really appreciate it if you didn’t describe it that way in your report.”

He directed her down yet another steep path. Faith saw the lake first. The sun bounced off the surface like a disco ball from hell. She shielded the blinding light with her hand. Kevin was standing by the equipment shed. They’d put a canoe on the ground. Christopher sat in the middle. His wrists were zip tied to the bar that went across the center of the boat.