Page 103 of What Boys Learn

Benjamin had borrowed it. Not after Izzy’s death, out of an understandable curiosity to know why she might have died, but before. I couldn’t prove that, but it didn’t matter. Because what I did know for sure was that my clonidine refill bottle had gone missing as well. That’s why I’d missed several days of doses. That’s why I’d passed out in the police station. Benjamin had taken it.

Did it work?

Ewan’s advice about keeping the photo of Izzy was old news.Did it work?was a question about the next step. How to win Izzy over. And the answer was giving her what she asked for. But it hadn’t turned out the way anyone expected.

Benjamin had stopped home after the pool. I’d never understood why, and even the police had forgotten in time.

Benjamin was the one who gave Izzy the clonidine, which she didn’t take until she was in the motel.

Not to kill her. Not intentionally. No one could have known it would kill her. But maybe to satisfy a request.

Girls want things. They get things.

She was using me.

But he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

Shock rooted me to the spot where I now stood, in the dark living room.

But . . .Christopher Weber?

They’d found him and his car. They’d found photos, and pills—the same kind, but not the same brand.

It had all been too neat—the bad guy, not only caught but fatally punished. It had seemed wrong from the start. Because why would he have the same pills? If it was a coincidence, it wasn’t a satisfying one, but right now that particular mystery was less important than understanding my own son’s troubled state of mind.

I pictured Benjamin how he’d seemed since Weber’s death—if not haunted, at least burdened. Still afraid of being caught. Still struggling with anger—he hadn’t wanted Izzy to go meet Weber in Wadsworth—which was easier to deal with than grief.

Because hehadcared for her. I believed that.

Benjamin hadn’t been able to tell me. I knew how it felt to know something that no one else knew.

My troubled, unreachable son.

Carrying a secret he probably thought he’d be carrying to his grave.

PART

III

37

TWO DAYS EARLIER

BENJAMIN

“You’re kidding.”

Dr. C is holding open the driver’s door of his orange Jag for me.

“Why, you’re too afraid to drive it?”

“Maybe.” I don’t even know if I’m allowed to drive someone else’s car without a full license. But fuck.Thiscar.

“You’d prefer to drive the SUV?”

That one looks expensive, too, but it has a dented front bumper and scratched hood. The front license plate is missing. I walk around it. Actually, both plates missing.

“We’re taking them both up to Fond du Lac?”