Page 122 of A Forgotten Mistake

“Okay.”

I take another look at the photographs before turning toward the door. Gabriel reaches over and gives Jesse a hug, and I feel like I should say or do something, but I don’t know what. He catches my eyes, and I realize that I’m not getting out of this awkward situation.

“Did Sadie say anything?” Jesse asks.

“Just that she needs us to figure out who it is and stop them.”

“I don’t know what to think about it,” he says.

“About what she did? What’s there to think about? Sadie did what she thought she had to do to avenge the person she cared about more than anything. She went to the ends of the world for her. She was willing to die for her and she might. I guess that’s what love does to a person.”

Jesse looks conflicted. “Sadie and I realized we were better as friends, but she’s a good person. She really is.”

“Good people can do questionable things, and horrible people can do good things. That’s what makes people so unique,” Gabriel tells him. “You never know what someone is capable of until you take away the thing that keeps them moving.”

“And because of a senseless death too,” Matthew adds. “It’s one thing if someone you loved died because of a true accident. It’s another to find out there was pleasure taken from their death.”

Jesse sighs. “I wish she’d come to me, but I guess we weren’t that close. Let me know if there’s anything I can do. I’m going to look over these photographs and pinpoint which ones relate to Anthony and confirm that the tattoo would belong to the final person. From what I can see here, it does look like a man’s arm. Likely Caucasian, from what I can tell, but I’ll know better whenI examine the photographs and the body from today. I’ll let you know.”

“Sounds good,” I say as I head out the door with Gabriel.

The two of us drive to the hospital where we go up to Abby’s room. She’s sleeping, so I walk over and snap my fingers in her face.

“Maybe just like a gentle, ‘Hey, Abby’ would be better?” Gabriel suggests.

“Hey, Abby, wake the fuck up,” I say. “Was that good?”

“Not really,” Gabriel says as Abby opens her eyes and looks at me in surprise.

“Liam? What are you doing here?”

“I need you to be up front with me. Sadie has been shot and is likely going to die, so your idea of protecting her has gone out the window. Not sure why you’d protect someone who tossed you off a balcony, but still. We’ve all done dumb shit. Not Gabriel, but definitely everyone but Gabriel.”

“I’m not sure I’m excluded from that,” Gabriel says.

“Sadie… Sadie’s been shot?” she asks in shock.

“She was shot by one of the people who killed her sister. You done pretending like you can’t remember shit so you can talk to us?”

Abby watches me for a long moment, but her eyes don’t seem to focus. “My head hurts. Who shot Sadie?”

“I don’t know, but we’re hoping you do. Anthony is dead. Mitch, Steven, and Cameron are all dead.”

“Mitch wasn’t involved. He changed. He didn’t know what they were doing. I told Sadie to leave him alone. She said he was in a video, but Mitch said he didn’t know what they were doing, and that they told him they’d kill him. He didn’t know they were still doing it.”

“He knew they killed someone.”

“He… he thought it was a prank. He didn’t know Christa… they were using him to bring people to them. He didn’t know what they were doing to them.” She sounds so desperate to protect the image of a man who is already dead.

“What the fuck did he think they were doing?” I ask.

“They… they offered him drugs in exchange. He… he would go to college parties with the group of them. And he said Cameron would pick out a girl or a guy and it was Mitch’s job to go flirt with them. Then he would be instructed to take them someplace. If he did, they’d give him the drugs and he’d leave. I didn’t know him at the time, and he didn’t know what they were doing, he really didn’t. If he did?—”

“I’m pretty sure he could take a guess,” I say. “At the very least, you’d have to assume it was assault of some kind.”

“You don’t understand what drugs do to you. You dealt with your demons a whole different way than Mitch and I did. The euphoria, the peace… the addiction. What if you could only get that feeling if you handed someone over first? Would you do it?”

“Of course not,” I respond, but I also don’t know what would happen if I was never allowed to kill. I went a year between when Gabriel caught me and when I was allowed back on the force, and I felt like I was in constant turmoil. I was irritable. I sought out different things to fill that gap but nothing could. I would hunt men and women and just watch them. I would lie in bed at night and think of how to kill them.

---