Page 71 of Toy

17

Jolie

Four weeks later

There wasa brief knock at the door. Raising a quizzical brow, I headed over and glanced through the peephole. My shoulders slumped with relief when I saw it was just my neighbor, Mr. Bennett.

“Hi,” I said, opening the door. “I’m so sorry, I was supposed to give this to you the other day, but I totally forgot. We’ve had so much going on,” I went on as I hurried over to the table and grabbed the check Mason had left there.

I handed it to Mr. Bennett, and he coughed and cleared his throat. “Oh, thank you. I wasn’t here for money, though. I was actually hoping I could see Buddy,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. He coughed again. “I know it sounds stupid because I only had him for a couple of weeks, but I grew fairly attached to the little guy.”

I smiled and ushered him inside. “He’s a little cutie. Very easy to get attached to,” I said, leading him over to the fish tank. “You can come and visit him anytime.”

“Really?”

I nodded. “Sure. I owe you, Mr. Bennett. You took really good care of him when I was gone.”

He gave me a faint smile and reached into his pocket. “I somewhat owe you and Mason too,” he said before handing me a silver watch. “He told me to pawn this if I needed money, but it didn’t feel right. So I kept it. Haven’t had time to give it back yet because you’ve both been so busy. Not that it’s your fault or anything.”

I waved a hand. “Keep it. It’s just a watch. I’m sure Mason’s already forgotten about it.”

He shook his head. “No, you should take it back. It’s expensive, and I owe you for being such a grumpy old asshole to you so many times.”

I laughed. “All in the past. Believe me, you’re a kitten compared to most of the other men I’ve had to deal with this year.”

His smile grew wider as he ran a fingertip over the edge of the tank to attract Buddy’s attention. “You know, it does come in handy sometimes.”

“What does?” I asked, wrinkling my forehead.

“Being a grumpy old asshole. There were a bunch of reporters here at six o’clock this morning, asking if this is where you and Mason live. I did the whole angry old man routine and chased them away.” He raised one fist in the air. “Get off my lawn!”

“Really?” My eyes crinkled around the corners with mirth.

“Yep. Figured you two have been through enough. Last thing you need is more reporters hassling you first thing in the morning.”

“Now I definitely owe you,” I said with a grin.

Mr. Bennett turned back to the tank to watch Buddy swim in a lazy circle. “I’ve been keeping up with all the stuff on the news,” he said. “I heard that detective is in trouble. It’d be a shame if she lost her job. She seemed like a nice lady when she came here to interview me after you went missing last year.”

I tilted my head to the side. “You mean Beck? Don’t worry about her. She’s fine.”

When the US and Costa Rican authorities finally became involved in the cult situation after Beck called them in, it was clear that she and Mason were in serious strife. Especially Beck, given her status in the police force—she should know better, according to all the armchair ethics experts. However, we’d made an effort to minimize the damage as much as possible.

Even though it seemed obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that the two of them had made their way to the hidden cult compound to engage in some good old vigilante justice—something Mason well and truly did, considering his body count—I didn’t think they deserved to get in trouble for it. They were heroes to me, and that was a viewpoint most members of the public agreed upon. Unfortunately, that wasn’t good enough in the eyes of the law. Murder was murder.

So I lied. We all lied. The story the investigators were told in the end was this: I was kidnapped by the cult, and Mason and Beck subsequently tracked my location and embarked on a rescue mission. When they arrived, I was about to be burned at the stake. Mason jumped through the flames to save me while Beck held the unarmed men at bay. My father and the Elders quickly realized things were over for them now that their location was no longer a secret, and they commanded the men to kill themselves rather than face justice.

Those who refused to commit suicide were shot and killed by the Elders. Beck tried to intervene in the bloodbath while Mason saved me and herded the women and children to safety, but there was only so much one woman could do. She managed to chase my father, the Elders, and the rest of the men to the mansion, but by the time she got there, they were already dead.

Seeing as the guns she and Mason took on their rescue mission were illegal and unregistered, they couldn’t be traced to either of them. That meant the authorities couldn’t prove the weapons didn’t belong to the cult, and therefore they couldn’t prove that our account of how the evening went down was a load of bullshit.

The young women and children backed the falsified version of events out of sheer loyalty to their saviors. Every single one of them told the official investigators that Mason and Beck had done nothing but help them, and that the cultists had all violently killed each other. Although the authorities were deeply suspicious, they couldn’t prove anything, and Mason avoided mass murder charges despite the number of men he killed. I avoided charges too, seeing as the investigators were never made aware of my part in the death of my father.

Beck had also kept her job in the US police force despite the fact she’d headed to Costa Rica without informing the proper legal authorities of the cult’s location so they could handle the matter themselves. Usually, that kind of vigilante-style behavior would disgrace a member of the police force and ensure they lost their job permanently, but Mason had taken care of the situation, as he tended to do.

He made a massive donation to the state governor—hello, corruption—and once that governor was done negotiating with the police superintendent, Beck’s job was safe. She was forced to take administrative leave for two months and would be stuck on desk duty for another six months once she returned, just to satisfy the few people out there baying for her blood, but it was a small price to pay for her career remaining relatively intact.

When the verdict was handed down to her after the inquest was completed yesterday, she grinned and told me it was all worth it just to shoot my father in the hand and slam her foot down on his throat.

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