“No.”Jem shook his head.“We’re not going to do that.”
It felt like it took a long time before Tean trusted his voice enough to say, “Why not?”
“Because she’s my mom, Tean.Because she didn’t kill Gerald.”
“We don’t know that.”
“Yeah, we do, actually.Because she told us.”
“Because she told us?”
Shaking his head, Jem turned away.“I’m done with this conversation.”
“Jem, I’m sorry, but we don’t know anything right now.We certainly can’t make a decision about what to do next based on what Brigitte told us; she has lied to us about everything.She lied about Stephen.She lied about their relationship.She lied about why someone might have a motive to want Gerald dead.She lied about what she’s been doing.We don’t know how much she was involved in this plan to steal money from Gerald’s coaching group.We don’t know how she and Stephen started working on this.We don’t know what their end goal was.We don’t even know why she invited us up here.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“I understand why you feel that way—”
“She didn’t kill him!”Jem slapped the top of the breakfast bar.The crack of his palm against the marble was like a gunshot.“I said I’m done talking about this.”
“Jem—”
The sound he made was somewhere between a moan and a laugh.He walked into the bedroom.
Tean followed him.“Jem—”
“Oh my God, can you leave me the fuck alone for five fucking minutes?”Jem grabbed a pillow he’d left at the foot of the bed.He tossed it up the mattress.“Please?”
Deep breaths.Deep breaths.You have to be calm because he can’t be calm right now.
“We know she—”
Jem screamed.Loudly.And then, pushing his hands through his hair, he stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.
Be calm.Youhaveto be calm.
But Tean didn’t feel calm.He had seen bees swarm.Had seen them rise like a particulate cloud, buzzing so loudly that he thought he could feel it in his bones.
She ruined his life.
And he’s going to let her get away with it.
He didn’t remember moving across the room, but the bathroom door opened when he tried the knob.
Jem was bent over the sink.His face was wet.His eyes were red.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”he asked.Water was still trickling down his cheeks, running into his beard and glistening there.He grabbed a towel and buried his face in it.
“I don’t understand why you’re acting like this,” Tean said.
The sound from inside the towel was, maybe, a laugh.
“I don’t understand why you’re protecting her.”
When Jem pulled the towel away, his skin was flushed from the water, from being rubbed with the towel.The marks of wind and snow were crimson.In his lip, the indentations of his teeth were white crescents, slowly fading now.He’d bitten his lip, Tean thought distantly.Just like she had.
It made him so angry that for a moment, he couldn’t see.Couldn’t hear.
