Page 126 of Too Old for This

He caught me with that question. I wasn’t expecting it.

Burke smiles. His teeth are his own, not dentures, and they are very yellow. Wonder how long it took him to quit smoking.

“What about the hair?” I ask.

“The what?”

“The hair from the Paul Norris case,” I say. “You showed it to me. It was a strand of brown hair in a plastic bag.”

“What about it?”

“I assume you had it DNA tested. Back then, you couldn’t. But now…” I open my hands up, indicating that the scientific world is his oyster.

His smile vanishes. As expected.

“Wait,” I say. “You couldn’t have it tested, could you? No, no, no, that wouldn’t have worked, because you knew it didn’t belong to me, didn’t you? That was another one of your lies.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“You faked that. Otherwise, you’d have DNA evidence. As soon as you found me, I would’ve been charged with the murder of Paul Norris.”

“You killed him,” he says. “Just like you killed Marilyn Dobbs and Walter Simmons and Plum Dixon. Not to mention her mother.”

I give him my best patronizing smile. “You know you sound a little crazy, right?”

Burke has an instant, visceral reaction. The gun shakes a little. His other hand grips the armrest. He grits those old yellow teeth.

“You don’t get to talk to me like that.” The words sound like a hiss.

I soften my voice. “You can’t think I killed all those people. Not really.”

“Don’t—”

“Look at me. Does that even seem possible?”

“Yes.” His voice does not waver.

I sink back in my chair, sighing with defeat. “Then go ahead. Stop teasing me and shoot.”

He does.

CHAPTER 68

“Like that?” he says.

The bullet is lodged into the computer screen. Dead center in my virtual heart.

My real one flutters.

No, that’s not right. My heart isquaking. Burke is not as weak as I thought he was. And I’m not as strong. After a lifetime of pretending, I suppose we’ve both gotten pretty good at acting fearless.

But it isn’t true.

The question this comes down to is simple: Is it better to admit what I’ve done and go to prison, or to lie and get killed? Because what he wants to do is arrest me. Fulfill his detective dream. But if he can’t, he will kill me.

Simple, not easy. Like all the best things.

Burke continues to point that gun at me. He is shaking with rage now, as if everything he has ever wanted comes down to this.