Page 148 of This is Why We Lied

“No.” Christopher kept shaking his head. “No. No. No.”

“You told Chuck that the business didn’t work without Mercy.”

He was shaking so hard that she could feel it through the hull.

“Christopher, you’re so close to telling me the truth.” Faith kept rubbing his back. “Come on, buddy. You’ll feel better once you get it all out.”

“She hated him,” he whispered.

“Mercy hated Chuck?” Faith patted his shoulder, but she kept her mothering tone. “Come on, Christopher. Sit up. Tell me what happened.”

He sat up slowly. Faith watched his stoicism crumble. It was like every emotion he’d ever suppressed had been unleashed. “Chuck embarrassed Mercy in front of everybody. I was—I was taking up for her. I wanted to teach him a lesson.”

“What kind of lesson?”

“To stop messing with her,” Christopher said. “I don’t understand. How did he die? I used the same amount as before.”

Faith was seldom caught out by anything suspects said, but this one gave her pause. “You’ve spiked Chuck’s water jug before?”

“Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. I’m a distiller. I’m very exact with my measurements. I put the same amount in his water as the previous times.”

“Times?” Faith repeated. “How many times have you poisoned him?”

“He wasn’t poisoned. His stomach was upset. He had the shits. That’s all it ever did. Chuck would say something rude to Mercy and I would slip some drops into his water to teach him a lesson.” Christopher looked genuinely confused. “How did he die? It has to be something else. Why are you lying to me? Are you allowed to do that?”

Faith had heard Sara’s theory at the crime scene. Chuck hadn’t died from the eye drops. He had died because he’d rolled into the water and drowned.

She had to ask, “Christopher, did Chuck kill Mercy?”

“No.”

Faith heard the certainty in his voice. She expected he would say something delusional, like Chuck was in love with Mercy, how could he kill her? But he didn’t.

“I knocked him out.”

“You what?”

“We always end the evening with a nightcap. I put some Xanax in his drink to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. Chuck was reading on his iPad, then he fell asleep.” Christopher shrugged. “The bedroom window in cottage two lines up to the window in the back staircase off the kitchen. I checked on him before I went to sleep. He never left.”

Faith was momentarily at a loss for words.

“I loved my sister,” Christopher said. “But Chuck was my best friend. He couldn’t help it that he loved Mercy, too. I kept him in check. I stood up for Mercy the only way I knew how.”

Faith was almost at a loss again. “Did Chuck know that you were drugging him?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Christopher shrugged away the multiple felonies. “Mercy was kind to me. Do you even know how that feels when no one else in the world is kind to you? I know I’m weird, but Mercy didn’t care. She looked after me. She put herself between me and Papa over and over again. Do you know how many times I watched him beat her down? I’m not talking with his fists. He whipped her with a rope. He kicked her in the stomach. Broke her bones. Wouldn’t let her go to the hospital. And then her face—the scar on her face—that’s all Papa’s fault. He let Mercy carry that guilt around for—”

Faith saw the look of fear in Christopher’s eyes before his head bobbed down again. He had said too much. But maybe not by accident. Christopher wanted Faith to try to pull the truth out of him. What he didn’t understand about Faith was that neither of them was going to leave this canoe until she did.

She said, “Penny Danvers told me your sister got the scar on her face from a car accident at Devil’s Bend. Mercy was seventeen years old. Her best friend was killed.”

Christopher didn’t respond.

Faith asked, “How is Mercy’s scar your father’s fault?”

Christopher shook his head.

“How is your father responsible for the scar?”