His small breakdown brings on my own tears. Deacon never used to cry. Even in the really dark assignments, the heartbreaking ones, he was always level-headed. Only once did he ever crack while on assignment.
He was playing the role of Ethan Gallagher, a freshman football player in Albany. Ethan’s family had been broken by the death—a heart attack after a practice. Ethan’s seven-year-old sister held Deacon’s hand whenever he walked in the room—as if she refused to see the difference between him and her brother.
I went in to extract Deacon from the case and to bring him to Marie, but he asked me to take him home first so he could shower.
I found him crying on the bathroom tile, saying that he should have been the one dead instead of Ethan—as if they were tradable. Deacon needed therapy after that assignment. He didn’t break down again.
So what would he think if he saw me crying in a diner instead of out looking for him? How disappointed would he be? Guilt begins to eat away at my conscience.
For now we have no real way to track Deacon. Our best shot will be following Arthur Pritchard when he goes into work tomorrow. But would he really go to work the day after his daughter’s death? I won’t underestimate his callousness.
“What should we do about Reed?” Aaron asks, drawing my attention.
“You need to tell Marie,” I say, earning a disgusted look. I hold up my hand, asking him to let me finish. “I don’t care who she’s working for,” I tell him. “She wouldn’t let any of us die. I know you believe that too. Ask her what to do about Reed.”
And although he hates the idea, Aaron nods and picks up his coffee, taking a loud sip.
“Fine,” he says. He stands, and we pay at the counter and head to the new hotel. Aaron said we should wait for morning to get our things, especially since we really don’t need anything beyond a change of clothes. Right now I just want to check on Reed.
And then I’m going to cry myself to sleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I DRIVE AARON’S CAR WHILE he calls Marie. She hasn’t heard about Virginia, so Aaron relays what we know and then asks for her advice. When he hangs up, he rubs roughly at his face. “She wants to meet,” he says.
I’m about to flick on the turn signal to turn around, but Aaron shakes his head no. “You go to the hotel and check on Reed. Stay with him. I’ll go see Marie myself.”
“Are you kidding?” I say, and look at him. Deacon did something similar and now he’s missing. Aaron must realize the circumstances too, because he shrugs one shoulder helplessly.
“Our options are limited,” he says. “But man—I wish Deacon had gotten his hands on some truth tea. It would be nice to know exactly where Marie stands.”
“And I wish we didn’t need to,” I say. But obviously, Marie’s motives are shady at best. Still, I won’t even entertain the thought that she had something to do with Deacon’s disappearance. It wouldn’t make sense.
I pull up to the hotel and get out, leaving the engine running. Aaron walks around the car, stopping to give me a hug in the glow of the headlights, and tells me to call him after I talk to Reed.
“I will,” I promise. But just before he gets in, I call his name. Aaron meets my eyes over the roof of the car, almost like he knows what I’m going to ask.
“You still think Deacon’s okay, don’t you?” I need to hear it. I need him to say it.
“Yeah,” Aaron says. “I really do.”
I close my eyes, relief flooding my chest. I thank him and turn away, knowing that I’m just like one of my clients: I’ll cling to any thought right now. Any hope—even if it’s a lie.
Aaron pulls out of the parking lot, and I check in at the lobby and get a key. I take the elevator and hit the third floor; when the door slides closed, I dial Deacon’s number again, just like I’ve done at least a dozen times tonight. The sound of his voice on his voice mail gives me one millisecond of hopefulness each time. It also tears me apart.
I just want him back. I don’t care about the rest of it anymore.
When I get off the elevator, I decide to stop at my room first, wanting to wash the dried tears off my face and compose myself before going to Reed. I feel broken—empty. Useless. I swipe my key card through the lock and push open my door.
I gasp when I find Reed sitting on my bed. His head is down as he writes in a small journal on his lap. When he hears me, he puts down his pen and closes the book.
“I was just coming to find you,” I say. I shut the door behind me and walk in. But I don’t get more than two steps before Reed lifts his head, startling me with his appearance. His clothes are still wet from the rain, and there’s a slight pink on his cheeks, almost like windburn. He sits rigidly, uncomfortable in his own skin.
“Hope you don’t mind that I let myself in,” he says quietly. “I wanted to talk to you.” Reed’s eyes are so bloodshot they’re almost entirely red. His lips are dry and cracked, with a small sliver of blood where they split. I think he’s been crying for a while.
“You should have called me,” I say. “I would have come back sooner.” I sit across from him on the other bed, but my heart is thudding hard against my ribs. He’s gotten worse since we dropped him off. I’ve seen this lost look before, the one he wears like a mask. I’ve seen it in grief counseling, and I saw it on Roderick when he killed himself at his party.
Reed sets the journal on the nightstand and folds his hands in his lap, looking me over. “I always thought you were different, Quinn. Different from the other closers.”
He smiles, but there’s no humor behind it. “Do you know that your father once asked me to take you out?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You already told me.”
“Did I?” he asks, sounding surprised. “Well, Tom told me you were mixed up in something; he hoped maybe I could bring you back. I thought he meant an assignment. But I guess he meant your whole life, huh? You aren’t Quinlan McKee.”
My skin chills. “How did you . . . ?” I stop, knowing who told him. “Virginia,” I say. He nods.
“She found your file,” he tells me. “After we talked in my car, Virginia checked the house while I waited. When she came back out, she had the papers. It was in her father’s office. She said he must have brought it home earlier in the day. We were going to give them to you. But . . .”
“But what?”
Reed rubs his face roughly, as if he’s got a headache. And the change is there. Virginia Pritchard made him sick. Whatever secrets she told him before she died, she made him ill. Panic, bright and red, blooms inside my chest. “Reed, what did Virginia say?”
“That it’s too late now. None of us are getting out of here. Not fully intact, at least.”
“What are you talking about?” I demand. “Jesus, Reed—what did she tell you?”
Reed looks down at his lap, lost in thought. “Arthur has already started. You, Virginia.” Reed pauses and looks up. “His new program has been passed. This is step one. We’ll all be rounded up in the morning. Remaining closers have been flagged as a danger to ourselves.”
“When did this happen?” I ask.
“Earlier this afternoon. Marie already knew.”
“She what?” She betrayed us. She knew Arthur’s plan but didn’t warn us—didn’t send us away. “Why would Marie do that?” I ask.
Reed shrugs as if it doesn’t matter—as if nothing matters to him anymore.
I cross the room and sit across from him on the other bed. I lean forward and touch his knee. “Reed?” I whisper, panicked.
I think Tabitha found out and ran. We’ll never get that chance, though.”
“Please—”
“Do you know that for an instant,” he says, as if I’m not talking, “I considered it? I considered letting Arthur take her away from me. I didn’t think I could live with the pain anymore.”
“Take Katy?” I ask. I knew he was grieving for his dead girlfriend, but I didn’t consider how much it’s been eating him up.
“In the e
nd,” he says, “I wanted to keep her, but I can’t live with it. Virginia showed me that. She knew her father would erase her again, and she was so scared of him, Quinn. You can’t imagine. He left her completely powerless in her own life. Now he’s doing the same to us.”
Reed stands, and my hand falls away from his knee. He bites down on his lower lip, and measures his words. When he drags his eyes to meet mine again, a tear drips onto his cheek. “I shouldn’t even be here,” he says. “But I wanted you to know that I think you’re special. I always have. You’ve got something we don’t: a soul. The rest of us closers have lost ours somewhere along the way, but you—you still care. Maybe that will be enough.”
“Enough for what?”
Reed doesn’t finish the statement. He starts for the door, but I jump up and block his exit. I’m not about to let him leave when he’s obviously having some sort of psychotic episode. I move in front of him, my hands on his chest to stop him.
“Reed,” I beg. “Please, just wait here.” The terrifying fact is that Reed was not like this earlier in the week. But ever since the day he met Virginia Pritchard, he’s steadily gotten worse. I just didn’t realize it. I’m the one who asked him to take her home. I’ve done this to him. This behavioral contagion is fast—too fast to stop. What the hell are we going to do?
Reed looks down at me and reaches to trail his fingers down my cheek. His touch is cold, and it sends an icy shiver down my back.
“Virginia’s right,” he whispers. “There is no hope. If Arthur catches you, he’ll change you. He’ll take away everyone you love. It’s just like being dead.” Reed’s fingers stop at my collarbone. “Don’t try to save them,” he says. “Any of them—even Deacon. Just save yourself.” He leans in and presses his dry lips to mine.
I jump back fast as if he shocked me with static electricity. I slap him across the face, hoping to knock some sense into him. He stares at me for a moment, his tongue licking at the blood that’s begun to trickle again from his lip. It’s as if he doesn’t recognize me. Then he blinks quickly.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he mutters, wiping his hand over his mouth and looking down at the spot of blood. He turns and starts for the bathroom to wash it off.
“Reed, wait,” I call after him. “I didn’t mean—”
He pauses at the door and turns to glance over his shoulder at me. My stomach sinks. His expression is empty, lost. “I’m going to kill myself, Quinlan,” he says in a quiet voice. “I just wanted to say good-bye first.”
I take a startled breath at his words and rush forward. But before I reach him, Reed moves into the bathroom, slams the door, and locks it.
Panic explodes through my body, and I pound on the door with my fists and try the handle over and over. There’s a loud smash and the shatter of glass from inside.
“Reed!” I scream. “Reed!”
This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. But as I kick, bang, and throw myself against the door, trying to break the lock, I know exactly what’s happening. And I’m reminded of Catalina and her sister’s story about the day she killed herself.
There is a heavy thud behind the door, followed by silence. I take a step back, staring at the handle. “Open it,” I sob out. “Please, Reed.” I put my sore fingers over my lips, terror raging through me. “Reed,” I say weakly. But there is no answer.
The quiet goes on for another moment, and I numbly reach into my pocket and slip out my phone, keeping an eye on the door. I’m shaking nearly too much to dial, but I manage 911 and give them my address. I call Aaron, and when he answers, I can only whisper, “Come back.”
“Quinn,” he says. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I don’t respond immediately because the beige carpet at the edge of the bathroom tile starts to darken. And I watch in horror as blood seeps under the door, staining the carpet red.
* * *
Reed Castle broke the mirror in the bathroom with the soap dish and then used a shard to stab himself in the neck, severing his anterior jugular vein. The paramedics told me he bled out in less than two minutes. By the time they arrived, the bloodstain on the carpet had grown to nearly three feet wide.
Aaron arrived shortly after, never having made it to Marie’s. I gave the paramedics as much information as I could without compromising myself. I used Elizabeth Major’s name and abandoned my friend’s body—I didn’t even see him. I left Reed there with strangers because I had no choice. I left him all alone.
And I hate it. I fucking hate it so much, because he belongs with us. We’re his family.
Reed was my friend and I ruined him by getting him involved with Virginia. I’ve ruined everything.
Tomorrow, when I turn on the TV, they’ll be talking about Reed, his privacy stripped away as they dwell on the horror of it all. Sparing no detail. Because the concern has led to calls for transparency. And really, the news wants ratings. Clickbait. People find coroners’ reports and post them online. Their morbid obsession is fueling this crisis, and yet . . . they can’t see it.
Grief ravages through my chest, and I turn to Aaron, crying against his shoulder as we stand in the rain, letting it soak us through. Aaron gathered Reed’s things before we came outside. Reed hadn’t checked into his room, so he’d left his stuff in ours. Aaron haphazardly shoved the items into a bag and put them in the backseat of his car.
Aaron helps me into the passenger seat and walks around the car and gets in. He parks around the corner, away from the police, so we can catch our breath. In the dark car, we sit and listen to the rain against the windshield. “Make it okay,” I murmur. “Please just bring him back.”
Aaron sniffles hard and turns his eyes toward the roof of the car.
“I wish I could,” he says miserably.
I try to build myself back up, sliding each piece into place until I’m almost a whole person. A broken plate superglued back together, all cracks and chipped corners. “Where will we go?” I ask in a scratchy voice, my thoughts a jumbled mess. I’ve lost Reed. I’ve lost my father, my advisor, my identity. And I’ve lost Deacon. “I have nowhere to go,” I say.
I’ve never really had a home. I had a place where I lived with a man pretending to be my father. I had houses where I stayed with families who had recently lost a child. Nothing of my own.
I had Deacon, and together we made a home. He knows my lonely soul better than anyone. Arthur Pritchard is trying to take that away from me: my last bit of home. And if Reed was right, Arthur plans to take even more than that.
“He took Reed,” I say. “Arthur Pritchard murdered him. And I led him straight to him.” I choke on my cry.
Aaron closes his eyes, his hands on the steering wheel. I know he wants to console me about our lost friend, but he doesn’t get the chance. His face contorts in anguish, his shoulders hunching over as he sobs, hard and filled with pain.
I lean in and rest my head on his shoulder while we both cry. We go on for nearly twenty minutes, and when we’re done, Aaron sits up, wiping his tearstained face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. And he starts the car, his breath still hitching on his tears.
CHAPTER NINE
AARON DRIVES AIMLESSLY AROUND TOWN while I call Marie. I tell her that Reed is dead without crying, trying to detach myself from the story. A defense mechanism. A disturbing one at that.
Marie seems devastated by the news. I leave out the part where Reed said Marie knew of Arthur’s plan for the closers. One tragedy at a time. I can’t even stand the sound of her voice right now.
The night is a blur. We stop for gas, and then stop again later so Aaron can call Myra. He tells her everything. He promises he’ll be back with her soon, but even I can hear the doubt in his voice. Reed’s death is a heavy weight dragging us down. Like it’s killing us too.
We just keep driving, because if we stop for the night, we might not be able to start again. I don’t know where the time goes. I only know it’s morning when the sun rises at five thirty, making a rare appeara
nce. It cuts through the gray clouds and illuminates one side of the road. I close my eyes and lean my head against the car window, letting the warmth onto my cheeks.
Reed, I think. He’s sending this to me to give me hope. To tell me not to give up.
It’s a sweet sentiment—one I hold on to as I fight off the darkness creeping up my throat. I drift off, and when I open my eyes again I see that along the road the trees are thick and green, the branches curling toward the sun as if yearning for life. Asking for help to thrive.
A thought occurs to me, and I reach into the backseat and grab the bag with Reed’s things. I remember seeing a journal on the side table. I start to rummage through the bag, feeling around for it.
“What are you looking for?” Aaron turns to me, his voice rough, and I realize we haven’t spoken out loud in hours.
“Did you grab Reed’s journal?” I ask, my heart beats ticking faster.
“Uh . . .” Aaron furrows his brow. “I’m not sure. I grabbed whatever I saw. Was it in the room?”
“Yes,” I snap, although not at him. “He was writing in it when I got there. He set it aside.” I grow frantic. “I can’t find it!”
I tear open the zipper on the front pocket. Whatever Reed was writing could be a clue to what happened—how he spiraled so quickly. How this epidemic works.
My hand closes around a small leather-bound book, and I pull it out. The sight of it makes pain well up in my chest, a reminder that its author is dead. I turn around in the seat and immediately open it.
The journal starts nearly a year ago. All closers keep one, although most of us opt to do it electronically. To be honest, my own journal was mild observation, plain. I imagine Reed’s will be the same. I quickly pass through the pages, skipping ahead, even over the mentions of me somewhere in the middle.
“Oh my God,” I say, my fingers stopping on a page.