I hear the hesitation in her voice. “Did something happen?”
“I really need a lawyer. I need you to be my lawyer.” I have no doubt that right now she’s wishing she never took those violets from me.
“I don’t know,” she says, which isn’t no. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
“I can’t really explain.” Knowing people is important to conning them. I know Mrs. Wasserman wants to help worker kids, but she also likes to know things. It doesn’t hurt to add a little incentive. “I mean, I want to tell you, but if you’re not my lawyer . . . I shouldn’t put you in that position.”
“Okay,” she says quickly. “Consider me your lawyer. Now explain what’s going on. My caller ID has you calling from an unlisted number. Where are you?”
“Trenton. The federal agents here are putting together a contract to try to get me immunity if I give up the identity of a transformation worker—a murderer,” I say, in case she starts feeling protective of the unnamed worker. “But I need you to make sure the immunity deal is airtight. Plus, they want me to work for them. I need to make sure I can finish out the year at Wallingford before I start. And there’s one other thing—”
“Cassel, this is very serious. You never should have tried to work out a deal like this on your own.”
“I know,” I say, happy to be chastised.
It takes hours and I wind up having to call Daneca’s mother four times with changes before she approves the paperwork. Finally I sign. The Justice Department signs. And since I am still a minor, Mrs. Wasserman sends over the page with my mother’s forged signature—the one I prepared in advance and left on Mrs. Wasserman’s desk on Saturday, flipped over so it looked like just another piece of blank paper. She doesn’t, of course, know that it’s forged although I imagine she must guess.
Then I tell the Feds who the transformation worker is.
That really doesn’t go well.
Agent Jones taps his fingers irritably against the press-board top of the table. The bottle rests in front of him, light making the green glass glow softly. “Let’s go through your story one more time.”
“We’ve gone through it twice already,” I say, pointing to the paper he’s making notes on. “I’ve given you a written statement.”
“One more time,” says Agent Hunt.
I take a deep breath. “My brother Barron is a memory worker. My other brother—my dead brother—Philip—was a physical worker. He was employed by a guy named Anton. Anton was the one who ordered the hits. No one else knew what he was doing. We were his private execution squad. I’d transform someone, and then Barron would make me forget about it.”
“Because he didn’t think you’d go along with this whole deal?” Agent Jones asks.
“I think—I think that Philip thought he was doing right by me. That I was just a kid. That if I didn’t know, then it was no big deal.” My voice cracks, which I hate.
“Would you have killed those people?” Agent Hunt asks. “Without magical coercion?”
I imagine my brothers coming to me and telling me that I was important, needed. That I would be in on the jokes, be a real part of the family, no longer an outsider. I could have everything I wanted, if I would just do this one thing for them. Maybe Barron was right about me. “I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t even know if I thought they were dead.”
“Okay,” says Agent Jones. “When did you discover that you were a transformation worker?”
“I figured out there was something wrong with my memory, so I bought a couple of charms and kept them on me. When I changed something by accident, I figured out what I was. Barron couldn’t make me forget, because of the charms. Philip told me the rest.” It’s weird to tell it so blandly, without all the horror or the betrayal. Just the facts.
“So you knew that we were talking about people you killed that first time you were in this office?”
I shake my head. “But I figured it out when I looked at the files. And I was able to remember enough to find that bottle.”
“But you don’t know where any of the other bodies are? And you don’t know whose body that is?”
“True. I really don’t know. I wish I did.”
“Is there any special significance to the bottle? Why did you pick that?”
I shake my head again. “I have no idea. Probably it just came to mind.”
“Why don’t you tell us about Philip’s murder again. You’re saying you did not shoot your brother, correct? Are you sure? Maybe you don’t remember it.”
“I don’t know how to use a gun,” I say. “Anyway, I know who shot my brother. It was Henry Janssen. He broke into my mom’s house and tried to kill me, too. I wasn’t wearing gloves, so I just . . . I reacted.”
“And what day was this?” asks Hunt.
“Monday the thirteenth.”
“What did you do exactly?” Jones asks.
It’s like remembering lines for a play, Sam said.
“Mom had signed me out of Wallingford to go to a doctor’s appointment and get lunch. After, I figured I had some time to kill, so I went home.”
“Alone?” asks Agent Hunt.
“Yes. Like I said twice before, alone.” I yawn. “The front door was kicked in.”
I think of Sam, with an oversize shoe on his foot, slamming the sole against the door. The wood splintered around the lock. He looked satisfied and also startled, like he’d never been allowed to do anything so violent.
“But you weren’t worried?”
I shrug. “I guess I was, a little. But the house is pretty busted up. I assumed that Barron and Mom had a fight. There’s not much worth stealing. It made me a little more alert, maybe, but I honestly didn’t think there was anyone inside.”
“Then what?” Agent Jones crosses his arms over his chest.
“I took off my jacket and my gloves.”
“You always take off your gloves at home?” asks Agent Hunt.
“Yeah,” I say, looking Hunt in the eye. “Don’t you?”
“Okay, go on,” says Agent Jones.
“I turned on the television. I was going to watch some TV, eat a sandwich, and then go back to school. I figured I had about an hour to hang.”
Agent Hunt scowls. “Why go home at all? None of that sounds very exciting.”
“Because if I went back to school, I’d have to do after-school stuff. I’m lazy.”
They share another look, not a very friendly one.
“This guy comes out, pointing a gun at me. I hold up my hands, but he comes right up to me. He starts telling me this story about how Philip was supposed to kill him and he had to take off in the middle of the night, leave everything behind. I was with Philip, although I don’t remember it, and he blamed me, too. Which, I guess, is fair. He goes on, saying that he and his girlfriend capped Philip and that I’m next.”
“And he told you all this?”
I nod my head. “I guess he wanted to be sure I was afraid.”
“Were you afraid?” asks Agent Jones.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “Of course I was scared.”
Agent Hunt scowls. “Was he alone?”
“The girlfriend was there. Beth, I think. Her picture was in those files you gave me. I don’t think she’s a professional. She didn’t act like one. I guess that’s how she wound up walking in front of a camera.”
“How come he came back now, after all this time?”
“He said that Philip no longer had Zacharov’s protection.”
“Is that true?” “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m no laborer. At the time I didn’t really care. I had to do something, so I rushed him.”
“Did the gun go off?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Two in the ceiling. Plaster everywhere. My hand hit his skin and I changed his heart to glass.”
“Then what?” Agent Jones asks.
“The woman screamed and grabbed for the gun,” I say. My hands feel clammy. I concentrate on minimizing my tells. Thinking of the last time I told this story, I make sure not to use the same language, so it doesn’t seem like a memorized speech. “She ran.”
“Did she shoot at you?”
I shake my head. “Like I said, she ran.”
“Now, why do you think that is? Why not take a shot at you? You were right there. Blowback was going to knock you out in a minute. She probably could have carved you up slow.” It doesn’t comfort me that Agent Hunt knows so much about the way transformation blowback works, but the delight in his voice when he talks about what she could have done to me worries me even more.
“I have no idea,” I say. “I guess she freaked out. Maybe she didn’t know. I’m not telling you anything new here. I don’t know, and no matter how many times you ask me, all I can do is guess.”
“So you put him in the freezer? Sounds like you’ve disposed of a body before.” Agent Jones says it like he’s joking, but he’s not.
“I watch a lot of television,” I say with a meaningless wave of my hand. “Turns out bodies are heavier in real life.”
“Then what? You went back to school like nothing happened?”
“Yeah, kind of,” I say. “I mean, I went back to school like I’d just killed a guy and put him in my freezer. But I’m not sure you can tell the difference from the outside.”
“You’re a pretty cool customer, huh?” says Agent Hunt.
“I hide my inner pain under my stoic visage.”
Agent Hunt looks like he would like to put his fist through my stoic visage. Then Agent Jones’s phone rings and he gets up, walking out of the room. Agent Hunt follows him. His last look in my direction is some combination of suspicion and alarm, like he suddenly thinks I might be telling the truth.
I go back to my homework. My stomach growls. According to my watch it’s nearly seven.
It takes them twenty minutes to come back.
“Okay, kid,” Agent Hunt says when they do. “We found the body in the freezer, just like you said. Just one last question. Where are his clothes?”
“Oh,” I say. For a moment my mind goes blank. I knew I forgot something. “Oh, yeah.” I force a shrug. “I dropped them into the river. I thought maybe it would suggest he’d drowned, if someone found them. No one did, though.”
Hunt gives me a long look, then nods once. “We also visited Bethenny Thomas and recovered two guns, although ballistics will still need to match the bullets. Now let’s see you transform something.”
“Oh, right. The show,” I say, standing up.
I strip off my gloves slowly and press my hands down onto the cool, dry surface of the table.
At eleven that night I call Barron from my car.
“Okay,” I say. “I made my decision.”
“You really had no choice,” he says, smug. He sounds very big-brotherly, like he already warned me not to cross the street by myself and there I am on the other side, cars whizzing by and no way back. Just as casual as that. I wonder if Barron really doesn’t feel violated, if he’s so steeped in magic and violence that he believes cursing and blackmailing one another is just what brothers do.
“No,” I say. “No choice at all.”
“Okay,” he says, laughter in his voice. He sounds relaxed now, no longer wary. “I’ll let them know.”
“I’m not doing it,” I say. “That’s my decision. I’m not working for the Brennans. I’m not going to be an assassin.”
“I could go to the Feds, you know,” he says stiffly. “Don’t be an idiot, Cassel.”
“Go, then,” I say. “Go ahead. But if you do, then they’ll know what I am. You’ll lose the ability to control me. I’ll be common property.” It’s easy to bluff now, when the Feds already know what I am.
There is a long pause on the other end of the line. Finally he says, “Can we talk about this in person?”
“Sure,” I say. “I can sneak out of Wallingford. Pick me up.”
“I don’t know,” he says sourly. “I don’t want to encourage your delinquency.”
“There’s a store near the school,” I say. “Be there or be square.”
“It’ll take me fifteen minutes.”
When we hang up, I look out the window of the car. My chest feels tight, cramped, the way my legs would sometimes get after running—a pain so sudden that it would wake me from a sound sleep.
There’s only one thing to do when that happens. You wait for it to pass.
I figure that the Benz will make Barron nervous about my loyalties, so I wait for him on foot, leaning against the concrete wall. Mr. Gazonas, who owns the corner store, looked at me sadly from behind the counter when I came in and bought a coffee.
“You should be in school,” he said, then looked at the clock. “You should be asleep.”
“I know,” I said, putting my money on the counter. “I’ve got family troubles.”
“No trouble ever got fixed late at night,” he said. “Midnight is for regrets.”
I don’t like to think about that as I sip coffee and twiddle my thumbs, but everything else I’ve got to think about, I like even less.
Barron’s only a half hour late. He pulls up and rolls down his window. “Okay,” he says. “Where do you want to go?”