Page 46 of One Last Night

“Don’t act stupid,” she snaps. “MyGod, you’re like sixty years old! Grow up!”

“All right,” Sean says sternly. “That’s enough!”

“You’re not my dad!” she retorts, whirling on him.

“Dad’sbarely our dad these days,” Nathan adds bitterly.

“Well,he’sdefinitely not our dad, and he can’t tell us what to do.” She spins toward me. “And neither can you! You’re the fuckingtutor! JesusChrist!”

“You can get your point across without that language,” I say, frustration overwhelming my guilt.

“Can I? Because you don’t seem to get it no matter what I do. It’s none of your business what happens between me and Kevin, none of your business what happens between us and our dad, none of your business what happens between us and our grandma, and none of your business what happens on the vineyard.”

“What exactly happened?” Sean interrupts. “I’m still not sure what you two are so angry about.”

“She went to Kevin’s school,” Nathan replies, frowning at me with his arms crossed.

“Like a fucking creep,” Luann adds. “Told him to get into a van and then tried to get him to confess to sabotaging the vineyard. Which he didn’t do, by the way.”

The look Sean gives me cuts me to my core. It’s the sort of look a tired parent would give a toddler after coming home to find that the toddler had spread peanut butter all over the carpet. “Is that true, Mary?”

Luann plants her hands on her hips and stares haughtily at me. “Go ahead, Mary. Tell your boyfriend that you were stalking my boyfriend.”

I gather my thoughts and reply in as steady a voice as I can, “I am concerned that Robert Cartwright is going to suffer for a crime he didn’t commit. I’m alsoveryconcerned that you and Kevin have been sabotaging—”

“We haven’t! You don’tknowthat!”

“You can deny it all you want, Luann, but Idoknow that, and it’s a very big problem.”

“How do you know that?” Nathan challenges. “Did you see it happen?”

“I overheard her talking to Kevin. They were discussing how they were going to cover up the crime.”

"Jesus Christ," Sean mutters.

“You’re aliar!” Luann shrieks.

Her eyes are huge with terror, and her face is pale rather than red-faced. I look at Sean, pleading with him to look at her and know that I’m telling the truth. Instead, he looks at me, still like a parent, this time like one learning from the police that his child has been caught vandalizing a school.

"You two could get seriously hurt!" I protest for Sean's sake as much as for Luann's. "You two could have hurt someone else. You could have gotten your grandmother killed, or your father,or any of the household staff. Or yourselves. The explosives you carried could have been mishandled and exploded."

“That’s not a very high risk,” Sean interrupts. “ANFO is very stable.”

“Is that important right now, Sean?” I snap.

He narrows his eyes and holds my gaze. “No, Mary. It isn’t.”

I feel my lower lip trembling. But I was only trying to help! I just wanted to put an end to all of this! It’s not fair!

I am keenly aware of how childish I sound, and that does nothing to improve my attitude right now. “Listen, this can all end if you and Kevin just come clean. You need to tell the truth. You acted irrationally because your parents were being unfair, and they were. You two should feel free to date each other regardless of your family history. You made a poor choice, but it’s nothing you should be punished for the rest of your life. You made a mistake, and you’ve learned your lesson. Can you honestly tell me that your parents will put you in jail?”

Luann leans forward, hands still on her hips. “Read my lips, Mary.We! Didn’t! Fucking! Do! Anything!”

“That isenoughshouting and swearing,” Sean says. “Unless you want the other servants to hear.”

“Oh my God, Ilovethat you said that,” Luann replies. “The other what? What was that word?”

“Luann—”

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