Page 62 of Pure Killers

At the time.

I brace my hand on the top of the TV cabinet. “That night, I want to know what happened. To him, between you two.”

Tristan frowns, almost a pained expression. “I don’t think…”

“I don’t care,” I say, not harshly. “I need to know that at least.”

He sighs, taking a seat on the couch. Now that he’s lower, I feel more eased, like somehow this makes him less threatening, less the walking lie and madman I’ve been sleeping with. Drifting closer, I perch on the arm of the couch, watching his profile.

“I followed him,” he starts, not looking at me. “I thought… there was something off about him. I’d thought it for months. I got the same feeling from him that I got as a kid, in some of the worst foster homes me and Cass were sent to. So that night, I decided I had to know. No matter what it took.” He shifts, sliding down to between the couch and the ottoman, more comfortable on the floor, even further below me. He twists towards me, but his eyes stay fixed on a point somewhere near my feet where they perch on the seat cushion.

“I stayed outside your house for hours, watching. I saw you… and I thought for a minute, am I crazy? You were just watering plants there in the dark. It looked like you’d been crying.”

I frown. I don’t remember that, but few memories of the end have stuck with me. I cried sometimes, sure, but didn’t everybody? Life, and Tregam especially, was cruel.

“I was about to give up, then I saw him leaving, and I followed his car again. Into Crennick. Well, I’m sure you can imagine what I found. The victim was already dead, had been there too long. I confronted him.” Here, Tristan shakes his head. “I should have called it in but… something just snapped. All I could see was my sister in that dead man’s face. Knowing what he’d doneto her. Never being able to bury her properly, just a few bits of hair...”

I remember the hopeless missing posters, and they take on a new sting now to think of what they went through together. All the homes, the violence, only for her to be scrubbed out by the Cocooner when things were turning around. No wonder he had trouble letting go.

“Caleb fought back, hurt me, but I got him down.”

My hands press together between my knees, shoulder hitches up between my ears as though the room is cold. This story, these events, I’ve wanted to know for so long. It’s all different now. “And?” I press.

“I told him to tell me where her body was. Since there was a chance she didn’t… dissolve.” Tristan’s cheek twitches. He turns his face away. “He laughed in my face. I lost control. I grabbed the nearest thing, ripping it out of a machine, some kind of tuning fork, I don’t know, and I stabbed him.”

I’m nodding slowly. He doesn’t say how many times. But I know how many. 32.

“The minute I came back around, I knew what would happen to me. They wouldn’t believe me. Why would they? Caleb was a model citizen. And I’d just shown myself to be crazed. I knew they’d assume the other body was me if they knew that was him.”

“But his face,” I start, then close my mouth, still unable to speak of that.

Tristan tilts his head, eyes vacant. “He let my sister be an unknown corpse somewhere. No closure for her. I wanted him to be just as anonymous. No face, no name. But then… it wasn’t you that I wanted to punish. I left his body there, cleaned up the signs of the Cocooner. And then left my life. You know the rest.”

I bite my lip, staring into nothing as the silence stretches out. So there it is.

Tristan straightens. “Do you want me to leave?”

“I should,” I say. “But I don’t. I don’t want to be alone.”

He’s standing now, and I look up at him. “Too many ghosts around,” he offers.

“Something like that.”

He holds out his hand, and for the second time I look at his fingers, his palm, with no glove to cover them. “Come on, I’ll stay.”

I take his hand, and though it still doesn’t feel right, his touch grounds me. Tugging me backward, he guides me onto the couch, turning as we lie down to bring my back against his chest, arms tight around me. His breath tickles the back of my ear, and at once I feel myself becoming heavy with exhaustion.

Next that I blink awake, the TV is on, though silent. Some old movie playing and his arms are still around me, though I can tell he’s not asleep, and perhaps has stayed awake however many hours I lay here.

I close my eyes and drift away again.

***

“You heard about Seb?” Howie has a way of not beating around the bush.

“I heard,” I affirm. “I’m told to stay home today.” Tristan did the job of telling them for me, leaving a replica of his silver mask on Seb’s desk since even before our date. He knew he wasn’t going back. Between the mask and the pile of pictures left in front of the mask, it’s not long before they jump to the right conclusion.

An awkward pause. “You two weren’t serious, were ya?”

---