Page 44 of If She Stayed
“They told me you caught him… the man who killed those women.”
“Yes.We have him in custody right now.But as for you… well, we need to know about what happened twenty years ago.About Brandon Fisher."
Janet's shoulders sagged as if she had been carrying a tremendous weight that was finally being acknowledged."I was wondering when this day would come.I've been expecting it for two decades.That man… is he his father?"
“Yes,” DeMarco said.“Now, can you tell us what happened the night Brandon was killed?"DeMarco asked.
Janet was quiet for a long moment, staring at her hands before looking up to meet their eyes."I was driving that night.Eleanor, Jennifer, and I had been drinking wine at Romano's, celebrating Eleanor's promotion at the library.We were all tipsy, but I thought I was okay to drive."
Kate watched Janet's face carefully as she continued her confession.
"It was dark, and Brandon came out of nowhere.I don't think he saw our car, and I definitely didn't see him until it was too late.The impact was horrible, and I think we knew how bad it was right away.But…we'd been drinking, and we panicked.We were scared, and we made the worst decision of our lives."
"You left the scene without calling for help," Kate said.
Janet nodded as tears beginning to flow down her cheeks.Her reaction wasn’t all too dissimilar from what they’d seen out of Robert Fisher an hour or so ago."We drove straight to Eleanor's house and sobered up fast when we realized what we had done.We talked about going back, about calling the police, but we were terrified.We convinced ourselves that maybe the kid was okay.There were lots of houses around… maybe he got help… or something.”
"But you knew that wasn't true," DeMarco observed.“You just said that yourself.”
"Deep down, yes.We knew we had hit him hard, and we knew leaving him there was wrong.But we were cowards."Janet wiped her eyes with a tissue."We agreed that night never to talk about what happened, to never see each other again.But Eleanor suggested we stay in touch, to make sure we all kept the secret.It started just as a weird weekly hang-out, and somehow it became the book club."
And there it was—the puzzle taking its final form and creating a picture no one had really expected.
"Eleanor thought that if we met regularly, we could monitor each other's emotional state and make sure nobody was going to break under the pressure of keeping the secret.We figured that if we appeared to be just friends who enjoyed reading together, nobody would suspect we had any deeper connection."
"How did Robert Fisher find out about your involvement?"Kate asked.
Janet's expression grew more pained."Eleanor couldn't handle the guilt anymore.About six months ago, she told me she was going to confess to Brandon's father.I begged her not to do it, told her it would destroy all of our lives, but she said she couldn't keep living with the knowledge of what we had done."
"So she went to Robert Fisher's house and told him everything," DeMarco said.
"She promised me she would only tell him about her own involvement, that she wouldn't give him our names.But she called me afterward, crying, saying she had accidentally mentioned me by name and had slipped up about the book club."Janet buried her face in her hands."I knew it was only a matter of time before he figured out who else was involved."
Kate studied Janet's broken demeanor and felt a complex mixture of sympathy and revulsion.This woman had helped kill a seventeen-year-old boy and had spent twenty years living a lie, but her remorse appeared genuine, and her suffering was obvious.
Janet looked up with desperate hope in her eyes, a strange sort of longing that actually made Kate feel uneasy."Could I please apologize to him again?Please?I… even after what he'd done… I took his son from him."
Kate shook her head firmly."That would be a very bad idea.Robert Fisher just murdered three women because of his anger about what you did to his son.Putting you in the same room with him would be dangerous for everyone involved.He did, after all, come to your house tonight with the intention of killing you."
Janet seemed to understand this, nodding slowly as the reality of the situation sank in.She closed her eyes and began speaking in a whisper that grew gradually louder.
"Dear God, please forgive me for what I did,” she prayed.“Please forgive me for killing that boy and for lying about it.Please help his father find peace somehow, and please help the families of the women who died because of my cowardice…"
Kate felt an overflow of emotion watching Janet's desperate prayer.The weight of everything that had happened, the chain of tragedy that had started with a drunk driving accident and culminated in three elaborate murders, suddenly felt too heavy to bear.It made her think of her own family and the tricky balance she’d been wrestling with over these past few months.
"DeMarco," Kate said urgently, standing up from her chair."I need to go home.I need to go home right now."
DeMarco looked at Kate's face and immediately understood that her partner was struggling with something deeper than professional fatigue."Of course.Go.I'll handle the rest of this."
Kate left the interview room and walked quickly through the field office.She was basically marching, trying to keep in the tears until she at least got out to the parking garage.The elevator ride to her car felt endless, and by the time she was driving through Richmond's dark streets toward home, she was crying so hard she could barely see the road.
How much blame could she really place on Robert Fisher?If someone had killed Michael in a hit-and-run accident and then covered it up for twenty years, would she have the strength to pursue justice through proper legal channels?Or would she be tempted to take matters into her own hands, to ensure that the people responsible paid for destroying her family?The questions tormented her as she drove, because she knew in her heart that she couldn't honestly say she would handle such a situation any better than Robert had.The love she felt for Michael and Melissa was so fierce and protective that she could imagine herself becoming just as consumed by the need for revenge if someone harmed them and escaped punishment.
When Kate finally pulled into her driveway and saw the warm lights glowing in the windows of her house, she felt as though she was returning from a journey that had lasted much longer than a single day.
She rushed through the front door and found Allen standing in the living room, holding Michael, who was dressed in his pajamas and clearly ready for bed.Michael saw her first, and his little eyes lit up at the sight of his mother.
“Momma!Hey!”
