saying over and over, ‘I can’t!’ Then he points to the laptop open on the couch and goes, ‘Is that her fucking computer?’ and I said yes and he says, ‘Get the fuck over there, open up a Word document, and type what I tell you. And wipe your fingerprints off everything.’ ”
A clang and a quick shuffle; she must have knocked her can over. Why is she doing this? Is it because it’s her one and only chance to tell someone what the hell happened? I wish I’d never had anything to do with this. I notice with interest this cool black pool I could sink right into if I wanted.
“I remember I told him I wanted to call 911,” she continues, “but he kept saying no. I think because of the drugs, because he was afraid I would tell, or they would figure it out, and he’d lose the building, everything. He just kept saying, ‘Not yet, not yet.’ ”
She’s shaking so hard, her shoulders and arms, that I can see it from here.
“My brain was going a million miles an hour, I didn’t know if you’d told anyone what you’d seen, and I thought that everyone knew that Edie had cut me out the year before, everyone saw how upset I was, and there weren’t any witnesses to show that it’d been an accident. So Anthony told me what to type and I put tissue over two fingers…”
“You opened up a new file?” I say this without knowing why.
She hesitates. “Oh, fuck it. Her diary was already up as a Word document and I saved it on a thumb drive on my keychain and then did control-all to delete all the copy. Then I typed what Anthony told me to.”
This jiggles something in my brain, but I can’t figure out what.
“I’m not sure why I took it,” she says as if I’ve just asked her, as if she’s on late-night TV and a charming host is interviewing her, all laid-back and chatty. Cameras appear all around us, stage lights beaming down on her at my kitchen table. “I guess I was thinking that if she’d written anything about how much she hated me, that might…that might not be good for me.” She drags something heavy across the table, taps it. “And also…I don’t know. I wanted it. This was my one shot at figuring out what she was thinking, this, like, enigmatic person I’d been close with once…and since she was already dead, it wouldn’t do her any harm. Like me, now, telling you.”
There’s a thought that’s a bubble at the bottom of a jar of molasses. It begins its long, slow rise to the surface. “You,” I say, “made me…do it.” That isn’t right and I try it again from another angle, like opening up a tricky folding chair. “Made me…think I did it.”
“You know, the only thing I really had to do was send an email from Edie’s account. It’s crazy, I had no idea you’re legitimately violent. You almost killed that poor kid the other night. You really are out of control when you drink too much. You could have done it. Killed Edie. Why not?”
I can’t remember what I did and didn’t do. She’s right: Why not?
She stands again and pushes out her breath like she’s steeling herself. “Are you still not out? You’re like a goddamn horse.”
“Mmmph,” I answer, then focus on pulling my lips into a shape; it’s the middle of winter and they’re frozen. Icicles crystallizing on my eyelashes, my breath white fog. “I’m here.”
“Good, because I brought you something. Open your eyes.” I do and something new surges through me, cold and sharp, because she’s wearing white gloves and holding a gun out over my head.
“Why?” I manage.
“I don’t know, you bought it,” she says, casually, like a teenager.
“Okay,” I murmur.
“Oh Christ, Lindsay, you didn’t buy it. But it’ll look like you did. I got it on the darknet. Mostly untraceable, but I ran it through your IP address first, so if anyone really looks, you bought it. Easy.” IP address. That tickles something. None of my circuits are connecting and it’s not fair, I want to be smart again.
“You know, this is momentous, I hadn’t touched a gun in ten years before this one. Since I picked up Kevin’s. Well, Edie picked it up, technically. Picked it up, showed me how to use it, because for once in her fucking life she decided to be nice to me