Page 48 of Old Money
He takes a bracing breath, beginning to protest. I raise my voice above his.
“Jamie, I came home to get Patrick charged with Caitlin’s murder. I’m here to— Well. What I—”
I hear myself starting to hedge. If I’m telling him the truth I’ll have to tell it all, plain and messy as it is. I clear my dry, throbbing throat.
“It’s exactly what you think it is. I’m trying to fix it—get the whole thing reinvestigated properly.I’mreinvestigating. I hope the state will too, eventually—or the county. But I’m, like, forty steps away from that. It’s a huge deal getting a closed case reopened—even with all the publicity this year. I mean that helps, but the village certainly won’t reopen the case unless they’re forced to. And in order to do that you either need ‘compelling evidence,’ or—”
“Or a judge,” says Jamie quietly, slouched back in his chair. “Yeah, and even then they can appeal.”
He drums a finger on the desk, rubs his eyebrows and sighs.
“I looked into it once.”
“What?” I lean forward, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. “When?”
Jamie shrugs.
“Years ago. Briefly,” he adds. “Not like that.”
He raises his eyebrows, pointing at me with his chin. Not likemywild, rambling plan.
“Why?”I ask him, still stunned.
Jamie looks up, his eyes narrowed—offended.
“Why the hell do you think, Alice?” he murmurs. “Did you think you were the only one who remembered what happened?”
In the silence I can hear the distant, tipsy roar of cocktail hour in the clubhouse.
“Okay then,” I say, whispering too. “Then you understand.”
He nods.
“You should’ve told me though. Me, of all people.”
At this, I drop my chin and give him a look.
“Come on.” I smirk. “I take your point, but no way would you have hired me if I walked in here and told you all that.”
Jamie stands, buttoning his jacket, looking toward the door. Dinner service will be starting soon.
“Yeah, maybe not,” he concedes. “Still wish you’d told me though. I would have have helped.”
I watch, speechless, as he steps sideways from behind the desk, heading for the door. He pauses in the door frame for a moment.
“Yeah,” he says, nodding to himself more than me. “I’m helping.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
July Fourth, 1999
Ispun around, arms up, ballerina style. When I stopped, the room kept moving.
“You are amazing!”
Caitlin took my hands and spun us both around. The band was loud and the dance floor was crowded, and we were in the middle of it.
I didn’t quite remember dinner ending—only that we’d been among the last to leave our table and head into the pink room for dancing and dessert. I didn’t know how much I’d drunk from Caitlin’s cocktails, but at some point I stopped worrying about getting in trouble and realized I enjoyed the pleasant frenzy tumbling through my body.
