“I had to know,” I told him. “I had to hear you say it.”
Tony didn’t respond. His silence said more than words ever could.
“You’re just as capable,” I continued. “You’ve walked that edge. You’ve pushed past it.”
“You bastard, Mitchell,” he whispered, trembling. “That doesn’t make me like you. I’m still innocent.”
I smiled. “No one’s innocent. Not anymore.”
Tony slumped. The tape was still recording. My words. His reactions. Everything.
“You think it’s over?” he said. “You think this ends with me keeping quiet?”
“It ends with you keeping your life.”
He looked down.
I pressed further. “DNA didn’t exist in ’88, Tony. But it does now. They’ll reopen her case. Amanda. Nudgee Beach. All that sweat you left on her.”
He flinched.
“You kept it buried. I just brought it back to the surface.”
“You won’t get away with it,” he muttered.
I shrugged. “Maybe not. But your world burns first.”
His eyes darted to the window, to the door, anywhere but me. Escape was a fantasy. He knew it. I stepped onto the pathway and looked back one final time.
“My secret is your secret,” I said. “And you’ll keep it. Because you have everything to lose.”
Then I shut the door behind me.
Tony didn’t follow.
-M (Author of SEETHINGS, downloadable and free for a limited time)
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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