Page 65 of Too Old for This

Torture has never been a predilection of mine. Inflicting pain for enjoyment is distasteful. And as a means of extracting information, sometimes the threat of pain is enough.

Not for Junior. He doesn’t say a word.

The other thing about torture is how much time it takes. Break a finger or two. Yank off a few fingernails. Pull a few teeth. If none of that works, you’ve painted yourself into a corner. No choice but to go further.

Chop a finger. Cut off an ear. Flay some skin from an arm or a leg or even a cheek. After that, the burning.

Eventually, they break and say something. Maybe the truth, maybe not.

I refuse to play that game. Nor do I want to draw this out. Burke has caused enough trouble. He changed my life once, when I had to move and become someone else. He changed it a second time by sending Plum to my house.

And now, this time, his son.

I grab a handkerchief out of my bag and shove it into Junior’s mouth. No sense in making more noise than necessary.

Next, I remove the plastic liner from one of the garbage bins and slip it around Junior’s right foot. He’s too confused to react immediately. Otherwise, he would try to move his foot around. He seems a little mesmerized, wondering what I’m going to do next.

I pick up the knife and bend down again, ignoring the pain in my knees and my arm, and I position the knife behind his foot.

One slice across the Achilles tendon.

Yes, the skin pops. I hear it right before he screams into the handkerchief.

Too much blood, too much pain. Everything about torture and knives is too much. Junior bucks against the chair, damn near breaking his back against it, but he doesn’t get free. He doesn’t pull the chair apart. I wait until he tires out, which doesn’t take nearly as long as I thought.

I pull the handkerchief out of his mouth.

“You bitch.”

Junior tries to spit on me but misses. I wipe the blade of the knife across his pants, cleaning it on his thigh. I lean down to the other ankle.

“No, no! Don’t!”

“Then tell me.”

He nods, takes a deep breath.

“You came down here to get Norma,” I say, leading him along. “Because she—”

“Wait. Go back.”

“Back to when your father told her to put a camera in my house?”

Junior shakes his head. He grimaces. The blood has slowed down, but it’s dripping out of the plastic bag and onto the rug. Though, to be fair, it’s improving the color a lot.

“Go back further,” he says. “Before Norma showed up.”

“Are you talking about Kelsie? Did your father have something to do with the money she needed?”

Junior rolls his eyes like I’m the problem. I might have to slap him again.

“No. I’m talking about Plum,” he says. “Didn’t you ever wonder how she knew about you? Or how she found you?”

My turn to blink. “Are you saying she found your father and he told her where I was?”

“No. I’m saying my dad found you . Then he contacted Plum, told her all about your case and where to find you.”

This takes a minute. Being stunned into silence is real.

“He thought you knew,” Junior says. “He was sure you’d figured it out.”

I don’t respond to that, neither confirming nor denying anything. But thinking back on it, maybe I should’ve known. Or at least suspected. Instead, I assumed Plum had known somebody or bribed someone. There are a lot of ways to get information if you try hard enough.

Or maybe someone will call you out of the blue and hand it over.

“Why?” I finally say.

Junior looks down at the ropes again. I hold up the knife. We’ve already established a routine, and since I’m the one with the weapon, I win.

“He spent forty years looking,” he says. “Last year, he found you.”

“How?”

“Social media. Someone posted a picture.”

That almost takes the wind out of me. I have been careful about pictures for years, always making sure my head is turned or my hand is in the way. “What picture?”

“A really old one of you and Archie in Baycliff, in front of your big house.”

“My son did not post that picture.”

“It was the woman marrying your son. She’s named after a horse?”

—

No. No.

I pull up Morgan’s social media on Junior’s phone and scroll through. She’d posted an old picture. The only people who had a copy of it were Archie and me. And now Morgan.

Isn’t he cute? That’s my Archie when he was a little boy. And look how beautiful his mother is!

#LifeGoals #xoxo

This was last year, not long after I met her for the first time.

I hadn’t been very nice to her, either. It felt like Archie was forcing her on me, making me accept her before we knew each other.

And yet, she still posted this. Something I would’ve known if I had accepted her friend requests. Or even looked at her account.

The pain is deep and sharp. It hits my brain like an ice pick. Another mistake, one that could have been avoided if I had been a little nicer. A little more welcoming.

Dammit. Focus. Regret is not what I need to feel right now.

“Your father never had this picture,” I say. “He must’ve been using some kind of app?”

Junior nods. “Facial recognition software. Ever since it became available online, he’s been using it. Dad never stopped looking for you.”

If not for him, Plum never would’ve shown up at my door. All of this, every part of it, has been because of Burke.

I place my hand on the table, steadying myself. It feels like the wind has been knocked out of me. The truth is not what I believed. It’s something else entirely.

“Why did he contact Plum?” I ask. “Why not call the media directly?”

“He knew you wouldn’t say anything. Reporters would just make you disappear again. He hoped Plum would draw you out.”

“He thought I would agree to be in her show?”

“Plum was going to make the docuseries no matter what. He figured you’d have to.”

“Have to?” Maybe in an alternative universe, where everyone lives on hope, that would be true.

“He didn’t know you were going to kill her,” Junior says.

First, that’s hard to believe, since Burke has always thought I was a killing machine. Second, I don’t have to answer Junior. Not one way or the other.

“So it all got out of hand, is that what you’re saying?” I ask. “Your father was trying to frame me, and now Norma is missing in action?”

“Did you do something to her?”

“I haven’t done anything to anyone. Norma put an illegal camera in my house, and your father is the one who told her to do it. He texted her.”

Junior opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again.

“You look like a fish,” I say. “Spit it out.”

“But you…”

“I what?”

“You killed Plum.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “You think so?”

“Yes. So does Dad.”

“Fascinating.”

“Fascinating? What does that mean?” he asks.

I grab the hammer and smash the side of his head.

I don’t answer to Junior. And he was never getting out of here alive.