A Bad Boy is Good to Find - By Jennifer Lewis Page 0,65

piece of fine hair behind her ear and took a deep breath.

“Tell us, Conroy. When did you leave this place and how?”

Con shifted. Lizzie shifted too, a semiconscious mirroring of his movement. The spongy mud had crept up into her sandals.

“I left here when I was fourteen. My dad had beaten me, like he always did, for doing something, or not doing something, or for just being—I don’t even remember what it was about—but I knew at that moment that the next time he hit me, I was going to hit back.” Con raised a hand and wiped it over his mouth. “I knew I was going to hit back and try to kill him.” He stared off into the dark swamp. “So one of us would be dead, either him or me. I’d be dead, or a murderer. So I had to go. I just took off. Didn’t take nothing with me. Just left and didn’t come back.”

“And you left your brother behind.” Maisie spoke very quietly, which gave the words the force of a secret, an accusation.

Con’s sweat stung Lizzie’s nostrils. Her own perspiration trickled down her back like a scratching nail.

“I left him behind. I told him I was leaving and that I couldn’t take him with me. I didn’t know how to survive on my own, let alone with a kid, and I figured things might be easier for him with me gone. More to eat with one less person around.” He hesitated, looked at the ground, then lifted his eyes and looked right at Maisie. “I rationalized it.” Lizzie could see his chest heaving beneath his shirt. “I’ll never forgive myself for that. Never.”

“Did you ever try to get in contact again, with either of them?”

“No.”

Lizzie shuddered.

“Do you want to find out what happened to them?”

Con’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. “Yes.”

They all stood like statues for a moment. Lizzie could almost hear the blood humming in her head like the mosquitoes outside it. Maisie shoved her hair back. “Cut. Thanks, Conroy, I’m sure that was hard for you. So shall we go talk to the neighbors, see what they know about your family?”

Con looked at her for a moment, then nodded. His expression serious and dignified. Very controlled.

“Alright, let me just talk to the crew, and we’ll roll to the next house down the road.” She strode back to the van, all business.

Lizzie pressed her hand over her mouth. Spoke through her fingers. “I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. Why would you?” He wasn’t looking at her. “It’s weird how clean the place looks. There used to be a rusty boat hull I slept in sometimes, right over there.” He turned and nodded at a patch of woods. “I’ll bet you were hoping for some junk to give the place a colorful redneck flavor. Sorry to disappoint.”

Lizzie bit her lip. His tone was cruel. Worse yet, he was right. How could he talk so normally after that revelation? But of course it wasn’t a revelation to him. It was something he’d carried with him, every day, for the last ten years.

“Maybe the house got washed away in a hurricane,” she rasped.

“Yeah. Most people would have come down here to check on the place after a big storm. See if their family was okay, if they needed help, don’t you think?”

His look challenged her to respond.

“I… I…” She didn’t know what to say. There were no right answers.

“I didn’t.” He let out a harsh sound somewhere between a laugh and a growl. “Deep down, I was hoping the place—and everyone in it—was gone. Washed from the face of the earth. Then maybe my guilt would be gone too.”

He wiped a hand over his mouth. “But nothing’s ever really gone, is it? It lives on in here.” He tapped his forehead. “You can’t get rid of that.” He shook his head. “I’ve damn sure tried.”

He stared around him, and Lizzie bit her tongue. Sure that anything she said would be a mistake.

“Come see the bayou.” He reached out his hand. She looked at it like a snake that might bite, then gingerly took it. He gripped her hand hard, crushing her fingers together. She caught her breath and stumbled after him as he pulled her past the footprint of the house, into some scraggly undergrowth. He pushed through some damp, scratchy branches. “None of this brush was here. Place must have been uninhabited for years.” A branch scratched her arm and a twig poked