This footage, Henry informed her, was long gone. Destroyed before he even made his confession.
Because, like Evie, at some point during the day after Mr. Button’s death, as the police conducted their investigation, Henry had begun suspecting that the heirs knew more than they were letting on. He snuck away to look at the footage from the cameras in Olympus and saw the events unfold, even if he could not hear exactly what had passed as there was no sound. He knew that even though the children had not directly killed their father, if this footage got out, there was a strong chance that they would still receive some blame and he could not let that happen. He knew that Chief Waxler strongly suspected that it was one of the children and would eventually find something that would connect one or more of them to the crime scene, and so Henry knew then what he needed to do.
Evie listened to Henry’s second confession in silence, and by the end of it all, she felt a bone-chilling cold run through her.
“The reason I did what I did was because in a strange way, I did kill Mr. Button. My silence meant that those kids grew up in a pressure chamber, and if I had intervened earlier, there would have been no explosion. I refuse to let them pay for the wrongdoings of the adults in their lives. Those kids deserved way more than me or their father. In the same way, you and Adam deserved more, so much more. I would have been okay with wasting away in a prison cell if it meant that they would be okay. Do you understand?” Henry asked.
She nodded. She did understand. It was all so messed up, but she understood it now.
“Good.” Henry sighed. The lines on his forehead had grown more and more prominent as he recounted the past. “I truly am sorry, Evelyn, for everything.”
Evie wiped her face with the backs of her hands and nodded, not accepting or rejecting his apology, just letting it hang in the air.
“Thanks for telling me everything,” she said after a few minutes. In the background she could still hear Henry’s mother’s drama playing.
“No problem,” he said.
She got up, ready to leave this place now and finally move on to the future after years of sinking into the dark pits of the past.
“I hope you have a good life, Henry Xu,” Evie said. And it was hopefully the last thing she’d ever say to him.
“You too, Evelyn.”
It wasn’t until later on, when she had already taken the long metro ride back into the city and returned to her dorm, that Evie realized she hadn’t found out how Henry pulled off his death trick.
She also realized that it did not matter how.
What mattered was that no one else had died.
What mattered was that Henry Xu was alive.
THE END
BUT ALSO THE BEGINNING
On a stony path in the heart of the city, a boy with a broken heart sat playing his violin.
If it weren’t for the tufts of salt-white hair poking out from his hoodie, Fola might not have noticed him when she approached.
“What did I say about cosplaying the poor, Tavi?” she said as she looked down at her brother.
She hadn’t seen him in months, and relief spread through her when he looked up and she saw on his face that he was okay.
He lowered his instrument and smiled up at her. “I’m not pretending, Fola. I’m actually broke,” he said. “If you want to be helpful though, you can put some cash in that coffee cup for me. I’m trying to raise enough for a sandwich.”
“What do you mean you’re broke? Last I remembered you inherited a very nice sum.”
He shrugged. “I gave it away.”
She blinked down at her brother in disbelief. “What do you mean yougave it away?”
“I mean exactly that. I gave most of it away. I got myself an apartment nearby first though, so it could be worse,” he said. “I even got myself a metro card,” he added with a smile before bringing the violin up to his neck again.
So this was where her brother had been for months? Busking on street corners because he had flushed all his money down the drain?
“What on earth is wrong with you?” Fola said, getting over her initial shock and graduating to irritation.
“Many things, my therapist tells me, or, well… She doesn’tactuallysay anything is wrong with me, but I see it in her eyes,” he said.
